


Jagged Edges of Broken People

by waterbird13



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU Post Infinity War, F/M, Fem Toni, NSFW Chapters, Obsessive Behavior, Post Infinity War, Thanos Loses, Toni is the hero, Trauma, but not abusive, cis female Toni, just unhealthy people, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:48:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 55,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23421232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: After Toni and Nebula successfully kill Thanos on Titan, Bucky finds himself desperate for a purpose. And what better purpose than looking after the literal hero of the entire universe, Ms. Toni Stark herself?Or: a relationship built on bad coping mechanisms, trauma, unhealthy coping, genuine love, and, maybe, a little bit of promise for a better future.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Toni Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 108
Kudos: 541





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all!
> 
> I have been working on this forever! I've always wanted to write fem!Toni, and somehow, it happened from Bucky's point of view. I really hope you all enjoy this.
> 
> I'm looking at a posting schedule of twice a week, right now. This'll give me time to finish this fic (it's close to done, I promise). That'll be Tuesdays and Saturdays, although, with social distancing, I barely know what day is what anymore. I start teaching again next week, so I might get a better grasp.
> 
> Alright. Here's what you need in terms of warnings for the whole story. Everyone in this story is super duper traumatized. This whole fic is about a relationship that is not healthy. It's not abusive; rather, the two participants just aren't healthy people, and are highly traumatized people. But it's me. You know I promise happy endings.
> 
> I'll post specific warnings as they come up, but you should know, overall that Bucky is slightly obsessive, in a way that comes off stalkerish at first and later detrimental to his own well-being. He's desperate for a purpose and decided Toni's it. Toni has health trauma, surviving the stones, and PTSD from a whole host of things, including what went down on Titan. They both just really want someone to love them.
> 
> There's not a whole lot of Toni in this chapter, but she's coming. Meanwhile meet Bucky and his issues.
> 
> As always, let me know if you enjoy this, and thank you for reading!

When the army falls to dust, Bucky can’t half believe it. He’s seen crazy things, so many, uncountable and unrememberable, but this takes the cake.

A whole army, bent on destruction, suddenly gone. Not dead. _ Gone. _

They all start looking around, milling about, until the King has the presence of mind to suggest they retreat to the palace to gather more information.

They don’t get any for about an hour, when Pepper Potts calls Rhodes to tell him that Toni Stark saved the universe, and is currently dying in a hospital in New York, and to get his ass home.

He goes. Bucky and the King stop the others from following along, and they wait.

Toni Stark, miracle of miracles, recovers.

. 

They don’t know what happened for almost a week. The waiting is eating Bucky alive— _ something _ huge went down—but he’s a sniper. He can wait.

Potts does a press conference, Rhodes flanking her. She shows a hospital photo of Stark, and it becomes clear why she isn’t there herself.

Bucky’s eyes catalogue the damage even as Potts lists some of it. Lost eye, damaged right side of her face, she’s trying to put on a brave face and smile but her cheek isn’t moving. He frowns, leans closer to the tablet. No one normal would see that, but he could have sworn—

There’s something going on with her remaining eye.

“—And, obviously, a total loss of her right arm to the elbow,” Potts continues. “Pending further observation. They’re still not sure if they’ll have to go back and take more.”

Bucky shudders, feels his own metal arm twitch in sympathy.

There’s a clang of reporters, so much so that Bucky has to step back from the tablet. He can’t imagine having that directed at him in real life, but Potts remains cool and picks a reporter out of the crowd. “Christine.”

“Reports say Ms. Stark wasn’t at the battle that took place in Wakanda. Was she injured before that took place?”

“Dr. Stark was involved in defending New York from Thanos’ forces, and chose, when given the opportunity, to take the fight off world to minimize casualties.” The camera pans back to the blonde reporter opening her mouth for a follow up, but Potts starts talking before she can get a word out. “Dr. Stark, Doctor Strange, Spider Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy faced Thanos on his home turf. Toni sustained her injuries in killing him and destroying his weapon which he planned to use to eliminate half of life on Earth.”

Bucky feels it pick up like a humming in his head, drowning out the press conference.

_ Jesus Crist _ . The woman he’d left for dead.

He gets the full story from the King a few hours later, seemingly at the same time as the others who hadn’t bothered to watch the news.

Stark took the fight to space, along with the Spider Man, someone called Doctor Strange, and the so-called Guardians of the Galaxy. Thanos came for them, and Stark and the others fought him. Stark had been stabbed, knocked around, and had a  _ moon _ dropped on her. Then, she and someone named Nebula had managed to tag-team Thanos. 

Stark distracted Thanos somehow and managed to stab him enough to get the gauntlet with four of the six stones off of him, ruthlessly cutting off his arm. Nebula finished off the alien while Stark actually put the damn gauntlet on and snapped the stones and Thanos’ forces straight out of existence. 

The stones nearly killed her, and T’Challa gets evasive on how she actually is alive beyond Strange using goddamn magic to get them back to Earth and a hospital nearly immediately.

The evasiveness isn’t lost on Bucky, but no one else seems to notice yet. Bucky isn’t going to be the one to bring it up. Not right now, not with Stark. He figures, after everything, that woman deserves whatever is keeping her alive. Even if it’s something the King might not want to mention.

It’s silent for a minute. “What does that mean?” Steve asks.  _ For us _ remains unspoken.

King T’Challa settles back into his chair, seemingly considering it. “Considering your participation in this particular battle, the world is willing to be lenient with you all. The United States is willing to welcome you back.”

There’s a stunned silence for a minute. “We can go home?” Steve demands.

Bucky frowns.  _ Home _ . He doesn’t even know where that would be. Not here, not Romania. Not Siberia. And not wherever Steve is going, that’s for sure.

When Bucky finally leaves Wakanda—four months after the battle, newly resettled inside his skin, the fourth iteration of Shuri’s arm on his shoulder—he leaves with the impending sense of abandoning his duty.

Not that he actually has a duty, there. Shuri doesn’t need him. Her brother, the King, certainly doesn’t. But Bucky has a particular skill set, and Shuri and King T’Challa put so much effort into him. He feels like he owes them something, and there’s only one thing he can give.

But they don’t need him, so he leaves.

He knows where he’s  _ supposed _ to go. The Compound, upstate New York, where the Avengers are now. They all but fly him directly to their front door.

Bucky doesn’t go. He doesn’t owe them anything.

They might feel differently.  _ Steve _ probably feels differently. That Bucky owes him everything. After all, he at one point gave up his entire way of life, his freedom, his girl, for Bucky. Nevermind that Bucky didn’t ask, didn’t want it. Nevermind that most of Steve’s life is back to normal, consequence-free. 

But Bucky knows better. He owes Stevie nothing. And Stevie certainly doesn’t need his damn protection, not when he’s all jacked up on super soldier serum.

So there’s not a lot of places to go. New York feels good, familiar and not particularly associated with the Winter Soldier. Familiar but not, comfortable enough for him to blend in and figure himself out.

So far: he likes helping old ladies cross the street and has been known to save alley cats. He’s broken up more fights than he can count and scared away more creeps from young women than he wants to think about. He likes coffee, and long walks throughout whatever borough he happens to be in at the time.

He does not like his transient life. He doesn’t get bothered by the rough sleeping or cold nights, or not knowing where his next meal is coming from. It’s more the way people look at him. Like he’s something to be avoided. And sure, he blends in with the perceived faceless hoard of the homeless, but there has to be another way.

Not like he has money, though. 

“What do you think, ‘Pine?” He asks. The cat, appreciating scritches behind the ear, meows plantitively. 

“Yeah, yeah. Look, you were an alley cat before we met, don’t pretend you have standards.”

The damn cat that won’t stop following him, no matter where he goes, gets more words out of Bucky than anyone else alive.

Alpine talks back, though, and doesn’t judge much. Bucky sighs. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Five days later, Bucky has a cash under the table construction job. One month after that, he’s renting a shitty studio apartment in Queens that takes his cash without asking questions and doesn’t much care if Alpine follows him home.

It’s not ideal, but there’s real food for Alpine at night, a little bit left over for the strays who come up to his fire escape, knowing he’s an easy mark. And some on the table for himself, too.

And the work’s nice. It’s not the most fulfilling, but he at least feels like he’s doing something and he’s not hurting anyone.

Well. No one who doesn’t deserve it. He’s not exactly stopped scaring away creeps at night.

He’s still a bit unsettled, though. 

He needs  _ something _ . Something to be doing, something to fulfill him in life, give him a purpose. HYDRA is the literal scum of the Earth, but at least he knew what his purpose was, then.

Now, he’s rudderless, drifting moment to moment, never sure what should come next. Who he is anymore, really.

He can only get so much fulfillment out of his job, or feeding the cats, or wandering at night. He’s a killer, and some part of him remains convinced he can turn that into something actually useful. But only if he has the opportunity.

The opportunity presents itself four weeks later.

Toni Stark is making her first public appearance since before Thanos. And Bucky is driven to be there.

It’s not hard to get in. The security at the venue doesn’t even question him because he’s wearing a suit he “borrowed” from a local cleaners and glasses and combat boots, and carries himself like he means business. He stands on the perimeter, ostensibly keeping guard, but also waiting to see Stark.

She comes out and pandemonium breaks out, making him tense, ready to spring. No one’s looking at him, though. They’re all watching her.

She waves an Iron Man red arm at them, smiles, which shows off her scarred face. The right eye doesn’t move. It also doesn’t sparkle quite like the left one does. The right side of her mouth still sags slightly, but he can tell it’s better than it was in the video he saw before.

“Hey,” she says, once she gets close enough to the microphone. “Well, I’m back.”

If she thought that was going to settle the crowd, she was sorely mistaken.

The conference is long and relatively tedious. She gets question after question, most of which Bucky either heard or gleaned the answer to while in Wakanda. What happened? Where was she? Who was she with? How did she survive? How bad is the damage?

She handles it with grace and a little bit of snark, dealing out bits and pieces of the story. Bucky can’t be bothered much to listen. Instead, he watches.

Watches how her grip on the podium tightens to keep herself upright, how the wood creaks under her robotic hand. Watches to see that she’s wearing boots, and flat ones at that, instead of the usual heels she wears, presumably to make herself seem taller. But she’s in boots, instead, and wobbling a bit, holding the stand for dear life.

Toni Stark…might need his protection.

And something, finally, inside of him settles.

That night, he acquires all the information he can on Toni Stark.

The New York Public Library branch near him has four biographies about her and countless news articles, stored away on microfilm that a kindly old librarian shows him how to use. 

Toni Stark is everything the Rogues said about her, and at the same time, absolutely nothing like they said she was.

Sure, she’s brash and outspoken. Bucky’s memory is fried, but even he knows people would eat it up if she were a man. And yes, she’s reckless, but unlike what the Rogues said, she’s only ever reckless with her own life.

She’s a millionaire—billionaire?—who cares. She’s almost  _ died _ to save people a dozen times, just recorded in old news articles.

“We’re closing in ten minutes, dear.”

Bucky nods, and then starts cleaning up. Even as he does the route movements, thoughts of Toni Stark occupy him, refusing to leave him alone.

Toni Stark saved the world. Toni Stark  _ didn’t  _ simply shoot him in the face when she had the chance to. Toni Stark is a  _ hero _ .

Toni Stark almost died to save the world, had her body nearly destroyed doing so. Toni Stark could use him, he thinks.

It’s actually disturbingly easy to lurk around outside the Tower she’s begun to occupy again. Which makes him think it’s a trap, because  _ Toni Stark _ wouldn’t have security this lax. 

So he hangs back. Rotates his schedule; he spends days in alternating shops in the nearby area, the coffee shop one day, the bookstore the next. There’s a public park nearby, and he tries not to think how heavily surveilled the entire area must be.

He quits his job, which means the apartment is gone. Alpine follows him, seemingly not too put out by the lack of regular meals. Bucky himself makes due.

Sure, a stable living arrangement was a nice commodity, but he’s not exactly demanding it, not used to it. He’d sacrifice a lot more to have a sense of  _ purpose _ again.

Not that he has much purpose in what he’s doing. He hasn’t even seen Stark. Maybe with some high-powered binoculars he could get a glimpse, but that’s a good way to get the wrath of hell dumped on him.

Still, he waits. Watches. Sleeps near the Tower, keeps an ear open. Whatever inconveniences are in his path, he knows Stark is particularly vulnerable right now.  
She’s also a hero. Saved the universe, almost didn’t live to tell the tale. And Bucky remembers, in painful, technicolor detail, how much he’s hurt her. How much they’ve all hurt her.

Today, he’s in the coffee shop for the afternoon. He brings a scavenged notebook. The woman at the counter thinks he’s an aspiring writer, just like half a dozen other people here. He keeps meticulous notes, on what and who he sees, any memories he might stir up.

So far, he’s seen five people he sees every day—three of them go into the Tower, every day like clockwork, two of them walk by without even looking at it. He sees one car that’s looped the block twice, and he keeps an eye on it, but the out-of-state plates mean it’s probably a lost tourist, or, more likely, gaping at the home of someone rich and famous.

He orders and drinks two coffees. He knows his memories of before the fall are still a scrambled mess—Shuri did a lot for his brain, but time erodes all things, she told him—but he is absolutely positive that the price he pays is unacceptable. Still, everyone else pays it, and Bucky can’t afford to make a scene.

His hand itches for a gun. There’s some sniper instinct, long-forgotten memories of sitting on trees and ledges, waiting for Nazis to come into sight. But he’s in a coffee shop. The gun has to stay hidden.

The minivan makes a third lap around the block. Bucky frowns, and notes down the time, checking his stolen wristwatch.

Every four minutes, like clockwork. 

He gets up, shoves his notebook into his worn bag, and hustles out of the store, pushing past the woman in the doorway.

The car hasn’t slowed down. Hasn’t stopped. Stark hasn’t been seen at all, there’s no reason for her to come out front when she hasn’t in weeks.

He hurries, checking briefly for the Glock in the waistband of his pants.

People scurry out of his way, the part of his brain still engaged enough to catalogue the situation notes.

The car’s moved on. He should settle down. Probably go back to the coffee shop—no, not the shop, he’s blown that for today, that would look weird, somewhere else instead. But the hairs on the back of his neck remain on alert, the tension in his shoulders remains.

Toni Stark walks out the front door, and Bucky, if he were not so well trained, would probably vibrate out of his damned skin.

The minivan is nowhere in sight, but Bucky doesn’t relax. That doesn’t mean anything. No one ever saw him until it was too late, either.

He doesn’t understand why Toni deviated from the plan, and he doesn’t have time to consider it. The timer has already started in his head.

The target is in the open, but she’s already moving towards her car, her security already stepping forward to meet her. If someone is going to act, it will be now.

Without even glancing away from Stark, Bucky knows the van is back, picking its engine out even on the busy Manhattan block. He picks up his speed, moving to a run, eyes and people be damned.

Someone else in the crowd moves to intercept him. HYDRA. Strike force. Formerly deployed with the soldier. Known for striking fast and hard.

He’s never fought the soldier, though, not when Bucky’s had any control over the matter. 

He uses the man’s weight against him, grabbing him by the arm and using his momentum to fling him away like a rag doll, listening for the  _ crash _ even as he’s already moving.

The van is on top of Stark, window rolled down, and the barrel of a gun protrudes, fires. Some part of his mind recognizes it as tranquilizers—how many times has the soldier been taken down the same way?—while Stark uses the nanite casing in her chest to generate a shield, using that and her prosthetic arm to fend off the attack while the rest of the suit forms around her.

The security waiting for Stark is on the ground. Tranquilizer, he thinks, not slowing down. She’s holding her own, but there’s more in the crowd.

Sure enough, one comes up behind her, uses a baton to hit her arm, and the nanite shield drops as her arm can’t stay up. He watches, churning in his gut, as some of the nanites on the right side drop away all together, retreating into nothing. He must have gotten her where her arm is still weak, interrupted however she can control the nanites. She’s already turning, good arm raised, presumably to fire, but it’s too late.

The one in the car gets her in the neck, a few square inches of visible space, and she drops like a fly.

He roars, reaching the man with the baton, breaking the baton-holding arm without even thinking about it, wrenching it so badly he’ll likely never use it for anything that involves fine motor control again.

Then he feels a prick in the side of his neck.

It takes him a moment to go down, the tranquilizers clearly strong but not quite strong enough. Still, he’s on his knees, limbs heavy, as three men get out of the car to move them.

One of them—tall, blonde, blurry in Bucky’s broken vision—raises an eyebrow. “The fist of HYDRA. Two for the price of one, perhaps?”  
Bucky tries to tell him to fuck himself, but he can’t force the words out.

Bucky wakes up quickly.

It feels like emerging from underwater, but Bucky does that quickly too, forces his way through. He begins to try to re-orient himself.

He’s not in much pain, which is refreshing. His arms are wrenched behind his back, and whatever is securing him feels mostly solid. He tugs, weakly, and nothing gives. He’ll have to try it again when he’s fully able.

He’s cold, but not cryochamber cold. The ground is concrete, trapping the cold and making it rattle through his bones, but the feeling is so familiar it’s almost comforting.

Finally, he looks.

Across the concrete, windowless little room is Toni Stark, her one remaining arm chained to the wall, her one good eye piercing into his soul.

“Well. Fancy meeting you here, Barnes.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Bucky's job to keep Toni safe. He's not sure he's doing such a great job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! Welcome to chapter two.
> 
> Here, Toni and Bucky get to know each other a bit.
> 
> Warnings for being captured, and semi-violent threats, and off-screen torture, and non-explicit medical problems. This is nothing you wouldn't get in an MCU movie and honestly is much milder.
> 
> Formatting got a little fucked up on this. I think I fixed it, but, well...¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> Also: I currently don't have any sort of beta on this. I'm giving it the best look over I can, but I sincerely apologize.
> 
> If you like it, let me know!

“What happened?” Bucky asks, studying Stark across the room.

A little bruised, but not obviously injured. Cold, goosebumps on her bare arms and partially bared legs. More concerningly, missing her prosthetic and the glowing light from her chest.

“You remember running in, to play knight in shining armor?” Stark asks. “We got tranq’d. No word on why yet.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Best guess is four or five hours.” She shrugs. “But what the hell do I know?”

A lot, he guesses, but doesn’t say. “And has anyone—”

“No,” she interrupts. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of anyone besides you. Speaking of. How’d you know this was happening today?”

“I didn’t,” he says as evenly as he can, knowing he’s admitting too much, knowing there’s no way around it.

She raises an eyebrow. “So you have been spying on me.”

“I…not spying,” he mutters.

“And what would you call it?”

“Waiting,” he says after a moment.

“To kill me? You clearly aren’t working for these idiots anymore, so you’re not in on this kidnapping. So, what’s your deal, Barnes?”

“To protect you.”

Stark raises an eyebrow. Even in the dark, Bucky finds himself oddly captivated by how nice that eyebrow is. How, with just a small gesture, she can convey so much. “Do I look like I need protection?”

“Right now?” She seems less than amused with that, and he can’t fault her for it. “You…you saved the world.”

“Mhm.”

“And got hurt. And I figured, someone oughtta make sure you’re alright.”

She doesn’t look much more impressed. “Bang up job.”

He looks down, guilt ripping through him like a fire. He had literally one job. And he’d failed.

Back in the day, that would have meant torture. Recalibration. The chair. The chair doesn’t exist anymore, although if anyone alive could craft a new one, it’s the woman chained to the wall opposite him. He somehow doesn’t think she will, though.

Still. He failed. He failed her, and that will have to cost something.

Before he can think of  _ what _ exactly, or ask her, he hears footsteps. “They’re coming back.”

She nods. “Alright, then. Game time.”

When the door creaks open, Toni turns to face them, a crooked, toothy smile in place. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Stark. I’m sure you can imagine why you’re here.”

“Not exactly original,” she agrees. “What is it? Launch codes? Missiles? Time travel? What do you all want out of me this time?”

“We have your nanites,” the man says, and Bucky has to be really watching to see how she flinches. “But it would greatly speed up the process if you assisted us in producing more.”

Toni snorts. “You must know my track record. I don’t cave under torture.”

“No one’s been tortured yet. But if you want…” He snaps his fingers, and his henchman cocks a gun at Bucky.

Bucky stares him dead in the eye. Anything not through his heart or brain probably won’t kill him. Will hurt, but he doesn’t much care about that. Hasn’t since 1945.

Stark watches the gun more closely than Bucky does. “I think you vastly miscalculated how much I care about this man. He killed my mom.”   


Bucky digs his metal hand into his thigh enough to cause serious bruises, lest he flinch.

“Toni Stark doesn’t leave people to die.”

She snorts. “You’ve missed some things. I’ve left a lot of bodies in my wake.”

Bucky’s read about it. Read about all that’s known from her escape from Afghanistan—the public stuff, SHIELD’s stuff, HYDRA’s stuff, Wakanda’s stuff—and her missions thereafter. Toni Stark isn’t shy about taking out her enemies. But she also saves people. Bucky’s seen footage of her saving those people from Air Force One.

“Well. Then I suppose we’ll just keep him until the commander comes for him, and we’ll  _ convince you _ to deal with us.”

“Best negotiator I ever met is Pepper Potts,” Toni says airily, like she doesn’t realize what they’re threatening. She does, though. She’s too smart, her body too tense, despite her words. “And even she can’t get me to do what she wants all the time.”

“Oh, but Ms. Potts doesn’t have our tools. Come. Let’s show you.”

They drag her out, leaving Bucky chained to the wall, biting his own lip bloody to keep from screaming after them.

They return Toni four hours later, give or take, and she’s a mess.

Her shirt and hair are soaked, and her face is red and splotchy. Definitely been crying. There’s a bruise on her throat shaped like a hand, and Bucky can see congealed blood around a rip on her shirt.

She makes eye contact with him, though, and holds that eye contact, as the footfalls retreat, leaving them alone—or as alone as they can be—once more. “Anyone come back for you?”

Bucky swallows. “Not—not yet.”

She nods. It looks like it hurts her throat. “Good.”

“Are you okay?” He hesitantly asks, needing to know, not sure if she’ll even tell him.

“I’ll be fine. Had worse than this before.” She taps her chest absently with her remaining arm. Bucky follows the gesture.

“Why the hell didn’t you let them take me? I heal faster.”

“You also have words in your head that turn you into a murder doll.”

Bucky swallows.“I…don’t. Not anymore. I’m cleared from that.”

Toni raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? Good. You’re up tomorrow, then.” But the way she says it, the slight tilt of her lips, Bucky knows she’s teasing. Joking with him.

He’s seen her on TV, knows she jokes and teases friends and strangers and even people she doesn’t even like, but he still jolts to hear it directed at him.

She groans, then works herself onto her knees and begins to crawl to him. Bucky bites his lip to stop himself from telling her to stop. The fact is, he’s still chained to the wall and she’s free. If they want to have any sort of conversation and not risk being heard, she has to come to him.

It’s awkward and uncomfortable looking; between having only one arm and being tortured, he’s honestly a little surprised that she can make it.

Maybe he shouldn’t be. This is Toni Stark.

She sits right up against him, side presses to side, and before Bucky can even begin to figure out why _ the hell _ she's doing that, or how he feels about it, she puts her remaining hand on his thigh and, slowly, painstakingly, begins to trace out a message.

_ Be ready tomorrow. _

He tries hard not to make a face. He can’t react, can’t ask her something back, with his hands bound the way they are. 

She doesn’t seem inclined to give him more information, either. She looks at him, reaches around him, and taps the cuffs holding him to the wall.

He gets the message. Nods once.

He can break them. His metal arm definitely can, if he puts enough effort in. The only question is about having a purpose in doing so. After all, they need a way out. To not get shot instantly.

She doesn’t continue the conversation. Instead, she lays herself down, her head on his grungy thigh. “You make a good pillow, Barnes.”

Bucky, with his back ramrod straight against the wall, grunts. “Glad I can be of service.” It comes out teasing enough, but they both know he’s more than half serious.

She shifts. “Yeah, well. You’re chained to the wall and I’m not, and I got electrocuted  _ and _ drowned today, so I’ll take a nap.”

“You give them what they wanted?”

She stills in her shifting. “Not yet. But…I don’t know how much more of it I can take.” She taps his thigh again. No message, this time. But enough of one, anyways.

Tomorrow. Bucky closes his eyes, and does his best to get prepared.

They don’t exactly stick to a time table. Bucky, who had a great internal clock in the war which has seemed to only strengthen, thinks it’s about dawn when they bust down the door.

“Stark. Soldier.”

Toni sits up, like she hasn’t been sleeping at all, like she hasn’t been lying across his thigh for hours. In the dim light of the hallway, she looks worse than before. The bruises are darkening, and Bucky realizes with some revulsion that there’s blood in her curls.

He’s about to open his mouth, get them to take him, beat the shit out of him for a change, when Toni abruptly pinches his thigh. “You bringing breakfast? I warn you, I’m picky about my coffee order.”

“I’ll bring you all the breakfast you want, if you show us how the nanites work.”

“You’ll put a bullet in my head, you mean.”

He tilts his head, as if to actually consider it. “Imagine what more you could create.”

“Imagine giving me extra time to end you,” she says, and she tries to push herself to her feet, but stumbles.

Only…she catches herself very cleanly, Bucky realizes. She lands in a crouch before controlling her fall onto her ass, to minimize additional pain.

The HYDRA operative is clearly not watching Toni as closely. Bucky should maybe be concerned by that, considering this man’s whole job right now is holding Toni hostage. “You can’t even stand. No one’s looking for you.”   


“You kidnapped me in broad daylight. You made quite the scene. Knocked my driver out. I live in fucking Midtown Manhatten. I think it’s a safe bet people noticed.”

“And yet…no superheroes have barged in yet. No AI broadcasting our location. I think you have to face facts. You’re alone here.” He finally turns to Bucky. “Well, except for him. A former, washed-up assassin with a brain so broken even his childhood best friend doesn’t want him anymore.”

Bucky doesn’t flinch. The broken brain is true, after all. The bit about Stevie is...a bit more complicated.

“I don’t give into terrorists.”

“We shall see.”

Two muscle-bound silent assholes drag Toni away, and she tries to get her feet under her. She’s not very successful, when the door slams shut, and suddenly, Bucky is left alone to worry once more.

He could snap his cuff. He knows something’s coming today, because Toni wouldn’t lie to him, is too good for her plan to fall apart that easily. But he doesn’t know if there are cameras.

So he stresses the metal a bit, weakens it, but waits for a signal from Toni to snap it.

He doesn’t know her, not really, except from the news and stories, but he has a feeling it’ll be big and it’ll be loud. 

Well, good. Bucky’s pretty much only got big and loud left in him, these days.

It takes most of the day, which leaves Bucky thinking about what the fuck they’re probably doing to Toni. Electrocuting her again? Beating her?  _ Killing _ her?

Or, has she actually given in, and done as they asked?

That last one doesn’t sound possible to Bucky. Like everything he knows about the world would be upended, if that were true.

He has very few solid truths to hold onto. His name is Bucky Barnes. He was the Winter Soldier. If he aims a gun, he will hit his target. Toni Stark won’t be brought down by HYDRA.

Finally, there’s a  _ boom _ , and Bucky breaks his cuff.

He punches through the lock on the door, and then he’s off, running  _ towards _ the explosion.

Everyone else is running away. Most ignore him in their terror, but some don’t. Bucky puts them on the ground, not much caring if they’re unconscious or dead on his way to find his target.

Toni runs into him, and Bucky stops and stares for a split second, because somehow she’s acquired a half suit of Iron Man armor and two handguns, both of which she immediately gives to him.

“Door’s this way!”

Bucky follows without question, without doubt. She’s fast. He’s faster, of course, but makes sure to remain behind her, following her direction, watching her six. Hopefully, he’ll draw the fire of anyone who comes along behind them.

He could pick her up, run for both of them, but then he couldn’t shoot. He evaluates their surroundings, deems it adequately handled despite their pace, and saves that as a  _ maybe _ thought, if needed.

The guns, HYDRA though they may be, feel comfortable enough in his hands. All guns do—it’s what he’s made for after all. He shoots enemies as fast as he can spot them, but he doesn’t get them all. Sometimes, Toni gets to them first.

He doesn’t think it’s his imagination, but there’s more armor than there was a few moments ago. She has repulsors on both hands now, and a decent portion of the chest plate.

“Faster, faster,” she mumbles, and he only catches it with enhanced hearing. She taps her nanotech prosthetic to her chest, then moves to shoot.

Finally, they’re at a door. Toni bites her lip, then looks at him. “How do you feel about holding on  _ really tight _ ?”

“Wha—”

“Craziest flight I’ve ever fucking done, maybe. But it’ll get us out of here.”

“What’s going on?” He demands, pressing her against the wall as he turns to shoot incoming hostiles.

“Pretty sure FRIDAY is sending reinforcements, but they won’t get here before you run out of ammo, and there’s a long distance between us and safety.”

“So we’re going to fly.”

“Yep.” She studies him for a moment. “You don’t seem too worried.”

“Let’s go.”

The nanos shift, the chest plate gone except for the glowing disc, leaving her with two gauntlets and two boots. “Don’t fucking let go,” she warns. “I’m not gonna be able to take this slow. Neither of us have body armor. We’re getting out of range fast.” 

So Bucky shoves one handgun into the belt of his pants, grabs hold, realizes once again just how  _ small _ she is, and doesn’t have time for much more thought, because she blasts the door down and takes off, already in flight.

The bullets whizz by them, and Bucky gets a brief look at the amount of firepower they’re facing, but Toni continues to climb, and fast. Her strategy just seems to simply be  _ away _ . Bucky can’t fault it, although he does wonder at how long they’ll be able to breathe. With the wind rushing by them, though, he doesn’t think asking will do him much good.

Then, Toni starts heading towards the ground again, over the tree line. Once they touch down, Bucky lets go, and he’s not too proud to admit that he’s shaking a little.  _ Jesus _ . What a fucking crazy thing to do. 

“Why’re we stopping?” He demands, looking to Toni, then back towards where they came. They’re clearly out of shooting range, but they’re not far. All it would take is a few operatives in the woods to pick them off. 

Toni holds up a hand, then starts dropping fingers, one at a time. Counting down, to what, Bucky doesn’t know, but he doesn’t have to wait long. There’re explosions in the distance, the compound they’ve been held with going up in a few fireballs.

Toni snorts, looking at her handiwork through the trees. “I told them it was a bad idea to try to make me work for them.”

“What happened?”   


“One of them was dumb to bring the arc into the room. All I needed was to get my hands on it.”

At  _ arc _ , she touches the glowing device on her chest, and the suit withdraws, except for the full gauntlet left on her right arm, covering the missing arm. Bucky can’t help but notice that the weaponized hand bit, the part that can shoot through walls and generate thrust to fly, is still there.

“What do we do now?”

“We walk,” she says shortly. “Unless you  _ really  _ want to try a flight like that again.”

It would be efficient. Get her out of here. Which leads to the simplest solution. “You fly,” he proposes. “I can make it from here.” He has to hope she’ll be safe until he gets back to New York, but he’s also acutely aware he’s been pretty damn useless these last two days. She might even be better off without him.

She snorts. “Thought you army guys were all for  _ never leave a man behind. _ ”

“I don’t remember a ton of the army.” And HYDRA, as much as he hates it, still clings to his bones, where every operative is expendable, where they had cyanide capsules in their teeth and Bucky has plenty of memories of stepping over not quite dead bodies, on the way to a target.

“Yeah, well. I don’t leave people behind. So, let’s go. If the map I saw is right, we’re about ten miles from a main road right now.”

So they take off walking. Bucky has his gun out and ready, but is acutely aware that he’s low on ammo, won’t be much help to her.

“Could you put the armor on?” He asks her, not liking the fact that she’s wearing a goddamn skirt, that her shirt is torn.

“Not enough nanites left for a full suit,” she admits. “Those idiots fucked around with it enough to do serious damage before I got it back.”

“What happened?”

She shrugs. “Best guess is they tried to stick it on someone and have them form a suit. Morons.”

There’s clearly something about that he should understand, but doesn’t. As far as he’s aware, that’s what she does. Taps the device, forms the suit.

“So without the proper control I assume there are nanites all over the ground there. And they’re relatively useless without the arc, but I’ll have to go back with a cleanup crew later. I don’t like other people playing with my stuff.”

“How do you make more?”

“They can regenerate. Self-repair, basically. But it’s slow and, assuming nothing tragic happens, we’ll be home before that’s done.”

“That seems like a design flaw,” he can’t help but point out, even as he knows he should keep his big mouth shut.

“Consider the ramifications if I had a technology with nearly limitless uses that I could replicate at will.”

Fair, he supposes. “So. No suit.”

“No suit,” she agrees. “We’ll have to be content with my arm.”

The sun is starting to set, and Bucky wishes he had a coat or  _ something _ to offer her, considering the chill creeping in, considering the skirt and torn blouse. He somehow doesn’t think pulling off and offering his dirty shirt would go very far, with her.

“You said you thought FRIDAY called for reinforcements. Who is FRIDAY, and are we getting help?”

“FRIDAY is my AI. I was able to connect with her, briefly, using the helmet. As far as I know, Rhodey is deploying to the best lock FRIDAY could get on our location. She’s still tracking us. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll see him before we make it to the road, although his first priority will have to be the HYDRA compound in the middle of fucking New York.” She turns enough to look at him. “Ever been here before?”

Bucky takes a minute to figure out if it’s an insult, or just a tactless question, but realizes it doesn’t much matter. “Don’t remember if I have.”

“Right. They fried your brain.”

“Yeah.” He decides he likes it, this lack of tact. 

“You really clear of the triggers?”

“Did they not tell you?”

She snorts. “Look—and I mean this genuinely—no offense, but I doubt your buddy would tell me if the world was on fire.” She’s silent for a minute, and he doesn’t argue. Steve has been pretty damn shitty to her. “I’m glad, though. What took care of it?”

He describes what he knows of Princess Shuri’s technology—the glasses, the targeting of certain areas in the brain, the slow detachment of memories—and Toni remains silent, other than crashing through the underbrush. “Well. Son of a bitch. Guess it was worth it after all.”

“What?”

“Where have you been living?” She demands, completely changing the subject. “Not in Wakanda, not with your old friends, I know.”

Bucky hesitates. “I’ve been...homeless a bit.”

She stops walking, looks him over, and frowns. “Why? Steve didn’t kick you out.”

“Didn’t even come back with them,” he agrees. “Didn’t want to. It doesn’t…feel right.”

“Ugh. Feelings.”

He bites his tongue. Doesn’t say that, despite being shot at and chained up and that  _ crazy _ flight, he still feels right about where those feelings have led him.

“So, what are your plans? I imagine they aren’t to be homeless forever. Or stalk me forever.” She stops again, as if something shuts occurred to her. “Unless you need something from me. Which I’d usually be a pain in the ass about—“ Untrue, he thinks. He’s seen her with the world, he’s heard about how giving she can be, even if the others stupidly insulted her continued generosity— “but, considering what we went through, I think I can throw you a freebie.” She studies him. “You clearly don’t need a new arm, and you said your brain is taken care of. What’ll it be? Battle armor? Guns? Fancy place to live?”

He swallows.  _ A purpose _ , he thinks, but even he knows better than to say it. “Just...checking in on you.”

Her eyebrow goes way,  _ way  _ up. “Just...checking in on me. Right. Why?”

“You should’ve seen the pictures of you on the news,” he says. “You looked…there are people who want to kill you. And I. Wanted to make sure they...didn’t, I guess.”

“In case you missed this part of the story,” Toni says, voice a little too loud, “I  _ chopped the hand off _ the guy who put me in that position. I take care of myself.”

“And you blew up a HYDRA base today,” he agrees. “I know you can. I just…”

He doesn’t finish. Doesn’t know how to. She grumbles a bit, but doesn’t make him, and he appreciates it probably more than she knows.

Bucky has a good sense of distance. He has to, as a sniper. So he knows they’re coming up on the road Toni promised him when he hears the whine of repulsors.

“Down!” He barks, then doesn’t wait for her to do it, takes her down to the ground himself, sliding them into the brush, her body under his.

Toni gasps and wheezes under him, her metal hand hitting his chest, but not very strong. Bucky frowns, tries to get a lock on her face, but doesn’t move except to pull the bulk of his weight off of her. Can’t.

“Get the  _ fuck _ off of her,” a voice says. “Or I’ll shoot you.”

It’s not an idle threat. It’s also not one likely to get Bucky to comply, except he recognizes that voice. “Colonel Rhodes?”   


“That’s me. Now  _ move _ . You’ve done enough damage.”

He does, scrambling off of Toni, keeping his eyes on the Colonel. “Not his fault,” Toni says a moment later, her flesh hand massaging her chest.

“Did he knock the wind outta you?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Then he can take credit for  _ hurting _ you,” Rhodey says. Still in full armor, he steps closer to her, offering her a hand. “You good to stand?”   


“Of course, Platypus.”

“Don’t  _ of course _ me. Are you, or are you not?”   


She just nods, so Colonel Rhodes helps her up. She sways on her feet, but the Colonel seems to be anticipating it, keeping a solid hold on her.

“How bad?”   


She shrugs, then winces. “You know. Cho barely lets me off my leash, and then HYDRA uses me as a chew toy for two days. So.”

Rhodes snarls. “I assume they’re the explosion?”   


“Someone will need to sift through the rubble,” Toni says instead of answering.

“And this one?” He asks, jerking his free thumb at Bucky. Bucky doesn’t say anything. Waits to see how Toni is going to explain him, waiting to take whatever title she gives him.

Toni just looks at him for a moment. “He tried to protect me.”

Rhodes looks back and forth for a moment, then looks firmly back at Toni. “We’ll discuss it later. You need to get to Cho.”

Toni groans. “Back to the leash.”

“Happy’s coming with the car,” Rhodes says without acknowledging her complaint. “Road’s a few hundred yards ahead. Let’s get you there.”

Toni shakes her head. “Barnes can get me there. You…you need to go take care of the HYDRA base, oh leader of the Avengers.”

Rhodes turns his glare to Bucky, who doesn’t quite know how to react. On the one hand, he’s  _ absolutely _ able and ready to get Toni to the car. Will protect her with his life, can carry her if she needs. On the other, some part of him is still a little surprised she  _ wants _ him to.

It’s like a little spark, somewhere in his chest, hearing those words.

So, he nods, not sure how reassuring he can be—he knows Rhodes and Toni are what he and Stevie maybe once were, and, if he were Rhodes, he certainly wouldn’t trust  _ Bucky Barnes _ with his best friend.

“You sure?”

Toni moves away from Rhodes. “Yeah, Sugar-bun. We’re good. I have full faith the man can walk me to a car.”   


Rhodes glares at Bucky for a moment, before nodding. “Alright. FRIDAY will keep me updated.” With that, he takes off again, and Bucky extends an arm to Toni.

She shakes her head, though. “I’m good. Can walk.”

“What happened?”   


“My chest is basically hamburger. My sternum is shit. I broke six ribs on Titan. The Infinity Stones…well. Like I said. Hamburger.”

Bucky winces. “Sorry. I…sorry.” It’s terribly inadequate, to say the least. Here he is, just fucking things up more, every chance he gets, apparently.

“Don’t be sorry. You tried to help.”

He’s pretty sure he should be sorry, anyways. “So, we’re going to the hospital?”

She stumbles a bit, and he catches her. Careful of her chest, this time. “No. The Tower. Cho’s still there.”

“And she is?”

“A damn good doctor. She’ll get me sorted out.”

Thankfully, they’re not that far from the road. The car is exactly where Rhodes said it would be, accompanied by a frowning man. The same frowning driver who HYDRA knocked out two days ago. 

“Happy!” Toni says, walking a little faster to get to him. She gives him a very tender hug, then leans up to kiss his cheek. “Good to see you up and about.”

If anything, his frown deepens. “Sorry, Boss.”

“I think we can all agree that HYDRA is above your paygrade.”

That frown suddenly becomes fixed on him. “That why you got this one?”   


Toni turns to look at him too. “Guess we’ll see,” she eventually says.

Happy gets her settled into the back seat, then holds open the door and stares at Bucky. “Well?”   


Not needing to be told twice, Bucky gets into the car.

Back at the Tower, Bucky helps Toni get out of the car. She’s more steady, but obviously not doing great. Once Happy has her again, though, Bucky sticks his hands in his pockets, goes to wander away. Wonders where Alpine has gotten to, if she’ll come back to him.

“Barnes. Wait.”

He feels like magnets pull him back to her. “Yeah?”   


“C’mon in.”

He hesitates a moment, and she rolls her eyes. “Please. You told me you’re homeless. It’s too late now. I’m not letting you go.”

Bucky lets his hair fall forward as he moves, hoping to hide his smile. Shit, he knew it. Toni Stark is too generous for her own good.

“I have a cat.”

“And I have robots. I’m sure they’ll get along,” she says. “Now. I have a hospital appointment Cho will literally flay me alive if I miss, but I expect you back for dinner.”

He swallows. “Wouldn’t miss it.”


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky moves in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all!
> 
> There really aren't any new warnings for chapter three. Bucky has some weird, obsessive qualities going on, but I promise he's not doing anything bad.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! Please let me know if you do.

Bucky re-enters the Tower through the front lobby two hours later, with a resigned cat under one arm and his meager possessions—the ones he’s hidden, as nothing he’d had on him when HYDRA attacked Toni had been left when he got back—under the other.

He looks around, unsure where he should go. There was a reception desk, but that was likely for business and not washed-up assassins who had been invited for dinner.

“Sir? Sergeant Barnes?” 

Bucky flinches at the name, but responds to it all the same. “Yes, Ma’am?”

The young receptionist holds out a phone to him. “You have a call.”

Bucky doesn’t waste any time trying to figure out how that can possibly be true, just takes the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hello, Sergeant Barnes. I am FRIDAY, Boss’ AI assistant.”

Right. FRIDAY—he heard Toni mention her today. And AI. He knows what that is, even if it’s still more dime novel fantasy than reality in his brain. “Nice to meet you, Ma’am.”

“You as well, Sargeant. Boss is currently in medical, and has given permission for you to come up. She says, and I quote,  _ I’ll be sprung in the next hour or so, and can give him the tour then.” _

_ “Will _ she be sprung?” He asks, thinking of the not inconsiderable damage she’d taken at the hands of HYDRA, and all the damage underlying that, still a mystery to him. It doesn’t sound like stuff that should allow her out of the hospital today.

“I am incapable of releasing Boss’ medical records,” the voice says primly, which,  _ right. _ Toni Stark’s AI is smart, protective, and has a personality. “Now, Sergeant, if you’ll proceed to the elevator bank, I’ll escort you to the proper floor.”

So Bucky hands the phone back to the receptionist, and makes his way to the elevators. Before he can hit the button, one slides open for him.

“Usually, a key card is required to go to the private floors,” FRIDAY’s voice says from a speaker hidden somewhere in the elevator car. “Boss has given a temporary override. In the future, you will not be able to come up without a card. If Boss gives her permission, I will have one printed for you.”   


“Thank you.”   


FRIDAY is silent for a moment. “Boss asks me to ask you what kind of food you enjoy.”

“I—oh. Anything,” Bucky says hastily, realizing at the mere mention of food exactly how long it’s been since he’s eaten. Did he eat in the coffee shop, while watching for Toni? He can go a long time without food, but his body burns through calories, and it becomes uncomfortable fast.

“Then I shall order some of Boss’ favorites, if that’s alright.”   


Bucky nods, then winces. “Can you…see me?”   


“I have cameras in many places in this Tower. So, yes, I can see you.”

“Alright then. Felt rude to nod if you couldn’t.”

“I…appreciate the consideration, Sergeant Barnes. We have arrived.” Just as she says it, the door slides open, revealing a glass wall, behind which Bucky can see what he can only describe as a high-tech, luxury hospital.

“This is prison. Prison, I tell you.” He can hear Toni before he even steps out of the elevator, but she only gets louder as he hesitantly goes through the door.

“Toni. You’re not in prison. I’m  _ trying _ to give you a steroid to help with your breathing.”

“I’m breathing just fine. I can talk, see? If I can talk, I can breathe.” Maybe so, but even Bucky can hear the wheeze still left in her voice. Clearly, the doctor hears the same and just continues with her treatment, unimpressed.

“Toni, you know I won’t make you. But this will help you get out of here.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? Gimme that.” Toni takes her shot, then turns to Bucky. “Oh, good. You came back.”

“Were you worried I wouldn’t?”

She snorts. “Kinda? You’re a little famous for disappearing into thin air. And, sure, I’m a genius. I could find you. But it’d be damn hard. Just ask your buddy Steve.”

Bucky stiffens. “Don’t really want to talk about him.”

“Works for me. What I wanna talk about is, who’s this little cutie here?” Her voice goes up, making a little cooing sound, as she makes grabby hands for the cat.

“That is a cat. In a medical facility.” The Doctor’s voice is so cold Bucky feels ice build up inside him.

“Lighten up, Cho. Look at this beauty.”

Bucky can’t help the smile. “You a big cat person?”

Toni shrugs, still making grabby-hands, so Bucky deposits Alpine on her bed. “Never had one. Well. Unless you count the ten minutes I had a stray, until Howard found out.” She touches Alpine, then wrinkles her nose. “Right. Look, Barnes. You’re welcome here, and so is your furry, adorable friend. After a vet trip and a bath, because something tells me you haven’t been flea and vaccine conscious lately.”

“I can’t afford—“

“And I have twelve billion dollars, relax. Tell me what kinda pet food this girl likes, and I’ll have FRIDAY order it.” His pregnant pause must be enough for her. “FRIDAY, order a variety of the leading brands. Nutritional stuff. None of those fake ingredients; buy real stuff actually good for kitty’s system. We’ll experiment and see what she likes.”

“I can have it dropped off in two hours, Boss. Would you like any other cat products?”

Toni waves the hand Alpine isn’t sniffing at. “Sure. Everything. Bowls, treats, toys. A bed? Oh, and something for her to scratch. You know I can afford it, but Pep’ll probably be pissed if she damages the furniture too bad, I heard that stuff is expensive.” She scritches Alpine behind the ears, then looks up again. “And a litter box. Can’t forget that.”

“Why are you doing this? Me, my cat, all this  _ stuff…” _

Toni shrugs again, then looks somewhere slightly over his right shoulder. It’s remarkably close to his face, but Bucky can tell. “You’re homeless, Barnes. No one deserves that. And maybe I’d drop you at a shelter, but you’re a war hero and knew dear old dad.”

Bucky winces at the mention of her father. “I think that would be more incentive to drop me at the shelter.”

She actually laughs at that, short and a little cold. “Yeah, maybe. But you’re here. Now, if you  _ want _ to go to a shelter…”

Bucky doesn’t want to take anything from her, but this is his chance. His chance to be close, to be where she might need him.

He knows one thing. HYDRA wouldn’t have gotten to her if he’d been her body guard that day, the one walking next to her.

“We’ll stay, if you’ll have us.”

“Great.” She turns to the doctor, who has been watching them like a tennis match. Or maybe a soap opera. “So I’m good, right? You promised me if I took my medicine, I could go.”

She sighs. “You’re free to go. Checkup tomorrow. And you’re back on the antibiotics, steroids for your breathing once a day.”

Shit, that didn’t sound good. Bucky automatically makes note of it. Toni won’t thank him for it, but he can guess she’s going to do her best not to remember any of those instructions. 

“Good, good. IV out, please.”

Dr. Cho goes about removing the IV, while Toni still uses her free hand to pet the cat. “FRIDAY, we have a vet appointment yet?”  
“It is past normal business hours, Boss.”

“And?”   


“And Dr. Roth will meet you at her practice in one hour.”

“That’s my girl.” She looks up at Bucky, who is watching the doctor press gauze to Toni’s arm, but refocuses under Toni’s attention. “You got a carrier for her?”

“No. She’ll be good.”

Toni huffs. “As long as she doesn’t pee in the car, we’re fine.”

And Bucky, bemused, watches Toni scoop up the cat and insistently carry her.

Bucky ends up getting his cat back—FRIDAY interrupts Toni’s steady movements towards the elevator to remind Toni that she should consider changing, so Toni reluctantly gives up the cat while she goes up to her apartment to change—but Alpine honestly seems more interested in Toni than him.

“Some thanks I get,” Bucky mutters. “I’ve been gone two days, you know.”

Once they get to the garage under the Tower, Bucky blinks and looks around, seeing the vast collection of cars. “Why would you need this many cars?”   


Tony shrugs. “Everyone collects something.” It doesn’t feel fully honest, but Bucky also knows better than to pry. Toni picks a car, and they both climb inside.

The roads are absolutely hammered with traffic, so they’re a little late to their appointment, but the vet is waiting for them.

“Ms. Stark.”

“Hey, Doc. Thanks for seeing us. My friend here needs to be checked over. Flea and tick, full round of vaccines. She’s a street cat, so anything she might’ve picked up.”

“Of course.” The vet, to her credit, doesn’t react to  _ Toni Stark _ with a homeless looking man and a scraggly cat. Instead, she just takes Alpine and begins her examination.

“How’d you end up with a cat?” Toni asks him.

“Alpine’s got sad eyes and I’ve always been a sucker.”   


“Yeah? I’ll keep that in mind.”

Bucky can very,  _ very _ clearly picture what Toni’s sad eyes will look like. And how easily he’ll cave to them.

“Of course,” Toni continues, “It probably won’t work for me. Not anymore. Trust me, I used to be the expert. But, only one working eye might get in the way.” She actually reaches up and taps her glass eye at that, seemingly as proof of her statement.

Bucky considers her. Is pretty sure she could still pull it off.

“So, tell me the story.”   


“What story?”

“How Sergeant Barnes went from brainwashed assassin in Siberia to homeless man stalking me outside of my building.”

Bucky looks over, but the vet seems a little focused on cleaning up Alpine, who decidedly does  _ not _ like the water. Bucky feels bad, thinks he should help—at the very least, Alpine can’t hurt his metal arm—but she’s the expert and Bucky would likely only be in her way. At any rate, she’s not listening to them. “You…you know we were in Wakanda.”

“Yeah, think the cat’s outta the bag on that one,” she says dryly.

“Right. I…I had Shuri put me under. Cryo. Until they found a solution. She eventually woke me up, fixed my brain. I was living in a little village. Simple. Not much like the rest of Wakanda, from what I’ve seen. Very…peaceful.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Mhm. And then…there’s always a fight.”

“Right. The fight with Thanos. I’ve heard this part. After, all your friends left at the first hint they could come back to America. But not you.”

“Not me.”   


“You go back to your village?”   


Bucky winces, thinking of the devastated little home he’d made. “Couldn’t. King T’Challa was good to me. Gave me a place to stay. But I knew, I couldn’t stay forever.”

“Why’d you wait? Why didn’t you go back with your friends?”

Bucky looks at the veterinarian one more time. She’s still focused on Alpine. “Well. We can start with that they’re not my friends.”

Toni stares at him for a minute, then starts laughing. Laughing so much she doubles over, laughing so much Bucky worries about what the doctor was saying earlier, about her breathing. “What?”

She wheezes a bit, then stands back upright. “Not your friends. Great. Steve Rogers caved my chest in  _ again _ for not a friend.”

“Steve did  _ what? _ ”

“What exactly do you think happens when you hit someone in the chest with a vibranium frisbee?”

Before he can even muster up a response, before he can even process that, the vet interrupts. “Ms. Stark. May I run blood work?”

Toni looks to Bucky, who realizes she’s waiting on him. Because Alpine is his cat, even if he couldn’t afford to bring her to the vet himself. “What’re you looking for?”

“If your cat has been on the street, we need to make sure she hasn’t picked up any diseases.”

Bucky hesitates, but he doesn’t want Alpine to get sick. “Go for it.”

She nods, and steps out to gather what she needs. “So you came to the US, acquired a cat, and lived on the street.”

He swallows. “I wanted to come here.”

“Why didn’t you just knock on my door, then, if you wanted to see me?”

“Would you have answered?”

“I don’t know,” she responds, and she makes eye contact for the first time. Bucky’s a little captivated, stuck in the honey eye. “Guess I’m letting you in now.”

The vet comes back, and Bucky actually walks over to help hold Alpine when she draws blood. She probably doesn’t need help—as much as Alpine squirms—but Toni can’t ask him any more questions if he’s holding his cat and standing next to the vet.

She takes blood, then gets Alpine her vaccinations. She explains the tick and flea shampoo to Bucky, then pats Alpine in the head. “All in all, she’s not in too bad of shape. I’ll call with the blood results, Ms. Stark.”

Bucky gathers Alpine up, and Toni goes to the front desk, presumably to pay. When Bucky picks up the shampoo and the cat, Toni is waiting for him. “FRIDAY says the stuff’s been dropped off,” she says by way of greeting. “Let’s go home, huh?”

As soon as they get home, Toni goes straight to the pile of cat related offerings. Bucky assumes she wants to get things like a litter box set up, but instead she gets out cat treats, getting down onto her knees and offering one to Alpine.

Alpine takes a moment, but under Toni’s gentle coaxing, eats it out of her hand. “Who’s a good kitty, huh? Who was a good kitty at the scary vet? Who deserves all the treats in the world?”

Alpine nuzzles her hand, and Bucky’s heart swells.  _ Jesus _ . Toni Stark, dressed down in worn clothes, on the floor, cooing at a cat. Something in Bucky warms, somewhere around the feeling he remembers alcohol causing, once upon a time.

Bucky watches her for another moment, before setting up the cat supplies, all the stuff he’s never had for Alpine before. He starts with the litter box—Alpine might have been fine taking care of her business in alleyways or the street, but Bucky doesn’t think he could physically stand it if his cat shit on Toni’s apartment floor—and then moves on to food and water, which encourages Alpine to come to see him, once she realizes that Bucky has a can of cat food. It’s definitely not the two for a dollar stuff he’d picked up a few times for Alpine. Reading the label—while the impatient cat butts his hand—it proclaims it’s all-natural, organic, no grain, all fresh.

“Cat eats better than me,” he grunts.

“Not anymore,” Toni says, placing a cat bed by the couch, and a scratching post by the window. “FRI? Can we get one of those climber things? So she can see out the window?” She pauses for a minute. “Remember that video Peter sent me? With, like, the cat jungle gym? I could build that.”

Bucky feels like he can’t get his bearings, all over again, a feeling he’s slowly realizing that is part and parcel to knowing Toni Stark.

“Would you like me to put in a supply order?”

“Yeah, base it off the video. I’ll check plans later,” she says, moving some other cat toys out of the pile, into the open, so Alpine can get to them.

“Toni, I—”

“Nope,” she says. “I like engineering projects. Cat-walks will be fun. Heh. Cat-walks. In the meantime, though, dinner. You eat pizza? I’m thinking pizza, it’ll be here quick.”

Dumbly, Bucky nods. 

“FRIDAY?”   


“I’ll place your usual order, Boss. With super-soldier sized portions.”   


“Great.” Toni looks at him, and Bucky looks back. She fiddles a bit, the earlier bossiness and confidence fading. “I…I have two apartment options for you. Well. Three. I’m not stopping you from leaving.”

“Right. What’re the options?”

“Well, there are executive apartments in this building. I’d be happy to put you and Alpine up in one.”

“Or?”   


She shrugs. “I have, like, four guest rooms in this apartment. No one else lives here anymore. So…”   


“Thanks, Toni,” he says, mustering as warm a tone as he can. “I…I’d like to stay here. If you’ll have me.”

She shrugs. Does that thing where she looks over his shoulder again. “Happy to have you. Now. No offense, Icecap, but you look decidedly homeless. Smell like it too. FRIDAY did her best approximation, ordered you some basics. If you’re really staying, I’ll show you to your room, you can get a shower before dinner.”

So Bucky follows her—Alpine settled in her new bed and decidedly uninterested in them anymore—to a bedroom down the hall.

It’s far more reminiscent of what he had living with T’Challa briefly in the palace than anything he’s ever known before. Large, elegant, with a desk—with a computer—and a bookshelf and a small couch, as well as its own bathroom. Too much for him, but Toni marches in with determination. She goes to the closet, opens the door, and it’s then that Bucky realizes that clothes are already in there.

She might have given him options, but she clearly had one that she preferred. That warm, slightly drunk feeling is back again.

“Towels in the bathroom. I’ve put shampoo and soap in there. If you have something you prefer, let me know.”

Bucky, who has never washed his hair with more than bar soap in his life, just nods. “I’ll…meet you back in the living room?”   


She smiles. “I’ll be there, trying to convince your cat to leave you for me.”

Bucky manages a chuckle, then watches her walk away, notices for the first time the little hesitation in her step.

He can’t do anything about it right now. Instead, he strips off, puts his clothes in the provided laundry bin—although he has a feeling he’ll never see those clothes again—and goes into the shower.

It takes a minute to fiddle with the shower settings—leave it to Toni to have showers that look as complicated as most people’s  _ phones _ —and then gets under the hot water.

He grunts, feels himself go lax under the spray.  _ Jesus _ , he hasn’t felt this good in a long time. Since Wakanda, probably.

Or not even then, because there’s something  _ right _ about Toni being in the next room. About Toni inviting him into her home, playing with Alpine.

Bucky can, does, take short showers. But he’s reluctant to get out from under the spray, relaxing as it is, so he leans his arm against the wall, resting his head on it.

He needs a game plan. The first step has to be tonight, during dinner, to make sure Toni is taking care of herself. To make sure she’s taking those meds the doctor was talking about, to check on that little limp he saw. 

From there...well, he guesses the second step depends on Toni. On what she wants for him, will take from him. 

He’d like…he’d like to be the one who walks her out of the Tower, when she goes out. He’d like to watch her back.

From there, he supposes it’s up to her. He turns off the water, dries himself off mechanically. Grabs his clean, new clothes—softer than anything he’s ever owned, possibly—and gets ready as quickly as possible.

When he re-emerges into the main room, Toni has pizza on the coffee table and a cat perched next to her, watching her plate.

“Hope you like it.”

Bucky does, in fact, like it. Likes it so much he polished off a pizza before he worries that that might be rude, but Toni just smiles at him and taps the next box down.

“Why’d you invite me back?” He asks around another mouthful.

“Why’d you jump in to try to save me?” She shoots back. “Could’a walked past. No one would’ve known.”

“I want to  _ protect _ you.”

She flinches, slightly. “I don’t need protection. I’m fucking Iron Man.” At his raised eyebrow, patient waiting, she bristles. “Let’s not forget how we got outta there, okay? I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“Yeah, well. I’m Iron Man and I’m Toni Stark. There’s a target on my back.”

“That’s my point.”

“I can deal with it.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“Why do you care?” Her neck and shoulders tense, and Bucky sees her shift a bit, like she could get to her feet if pushed. “I’d like an actual clear answer, this time.”

He thinks about it for a second, how to explain it to her. “I wouldn’t leave Wakanda, with the others. I knew I couldn’t stay, but they had nothing for me. So I…drifted, I guess. Lookin’ for a purpose. Whatever else you can say about HYDRA—and trust me, I can think of a lotta things—they trained me to find my purpose. And then…Toni, you’re not in a great position right now. HYDRA wants you, I bet others do too. You’re hurt, pretty badly if I understood what that doc was saying right. You’re in the spotlight all the time. You could use having someone like me around.”

“Why me? I’m not the only person hurt, who HYDRA wouldn’t mind getting their hands on. Most of the Avengers qualify.”

“You saved the world, Toni. You left the  _ Earth _ to protect us, you gave up your life. I might need a purpose, but I get to be discernin’ ‘bout it now. You got so much goodness, so I’m gonna choose you, every time.”

She’s silent for a minute. “I’m not gonna say you’re the first person to call me a good person,” she says. “But you’re the first who isn’t already family. Barnes. I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Let me be your bodyguard.” Woefully inadequate, but something a billionaire like Toni will probably understand.

“I have a bodyguard. And don’t you  _ dare _ imply that Happy isn’t good enough.” Bucky just raises an eyebrow, waits her out. She sighs, deflating slightly. “Alright, alright. I know I…when I hired Happy, he was fresh off the boxing circuit. He was good at keeping drunk rich people’s hands off me. Tell the truth, he spends more time with Pep than with me now. That’s his skill set. He’s just been worried, because…well, you know why. So, you can stay. Happy’ll go back to Pep.”

“Thank you, Toni. Swear I won’t let you down.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Guess we’ll see how it goes.”


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toni and Bucky grow closer. Toni has some rough edges of her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all!
> 
> I've decided to move my posting schedule up to three days a week. So that's Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I'm close enough to done with this fic that I'm not super concerned.
> 
> This is also a quite long chapter, so I hope that's enjoyable.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Toni has serious trauma, both of the physical and mental variety. She suffers some health problems, including the amputation and scarring already mentioned, but also some seriously compromised lungs. This leads to what is basically similar to an asthma attack. She has clear and obvious PTSD. 
> 
> Partial nudity (no shirts), but it's mostly not sexualized. Bucky does contemplate Toni's body, and mention knowing she did topless photo shoots once upon a time.
> 
> Bucky is his usual slightly weird, obsessive self.
> 
> A note about Thanos: In this fic, Toni and Nebula killed him on Titan, and Toni took the gauntlet from him and used it to prevent Thanos' plan from working and his forces from winning. I always thought it strange that Marvel spent time with the "I know you" stuff on Titan but never did anything much else with it. So like all my fics that deal with IW, I elaborated on that. Toni reflects on what happened in the past, and she describes a Thanos who was slightly obsessed with an idea of what she could be. It is not 100% clear if Thanos' obsession over her was romantic/sexual, or more "paternal" like with Gamora. Toni herself probably doesn't know.
> 
> Thanos is a dick, but he's very much dead.
> 
> Alright, that's all. I hope you enjoy, and please let me know if you do!

Over the next three days, Toni doesn’t go out. She spends eighty percent of the time in her lab, and fifteen percent of her other time is spent in medical, submitting to the prodding and poking of Doctor Cho and, on one memorable occasion, Doctor Strange. The other five percent of her time is when her friends visit.

They don’t like him much. Pepper, who is only in New York for two days and just wants a dinner with Toni, glares at him like her glare can set him on fire. Bucky squirms the whole time, eating less than usual, wondering if that’s her secret superpower.

“I don’t want you here,” Pepper announces when Toni goes to the bathroom.

Bucky squirms in his seat again, tries to think of what to say. He can’t figure it out before Pepper starts talking again. “I don’t want you anywhere near Toni, because that woman has dealt with  _ enough _ .”

“I…I agree,” Bucky manages. “I swear I’m not here to cause more trouble.”

She snorts, and yet she somehow manages to make even that look lady-like and elegant. “You Avengers always come with trouble. And you always dump it on Toni’s door.”

“I’m not an Avenger.”

“You’re just Steve Rogers’ best friend.”

“I haven’t seen Steve since the battle in Wakanda, and that was the first time I’d seen him in a year. I…I love Steve, I do, but…it’s not the same. I’m not doing this ‘cause he asked me to, I’m not reporting to him, and I won’t treat Toni like he did.”

“ _ You _ hurt her in Siberia.”

“I’m…I’m going to make up for it.”

“ _ You _ already left her for dead,” Pepper hisses. There’s a door down the hall, the bathroom door opening back up. Pepper narrows her eyes. “If you hurt her in any way, I’ll make you wish you died when you fell off that train.”

It’s insensitive as fuck, and Pepper looks like she knows it, like she maybe regrets her choice in words a bit, but Bucky appreciates it. Honesty is important.

Plus, he likes knowing Toni has people who will kill for her.

Toni re-enters, sees the tense environment, turns her head to look back and forth between them. “I miss something?”   


“Nothing to worry about,” Pepper says, not taking her eyes off of Bucky.

Toni groans. “Pepper…”

“I said, it’s nothing to worry about, Toni.”

Bucky nods. “Nothing to worry about.”   


Toni stares, then huffs. “I ordered dessert,” she says, seemingly giving up.

So, all in all, Bucky’s had a boring few days, threats aside. He barely even sees Toni, other than having FRIDAY help him hustle her to doctor appointments and such. 

So, he spends the majority of time retooling security procedures for the Tower. He wants this place as secure as the damn White House, even without being able to set up the type of perimeter the White House has. He shouldn’t have been able to spy across the street. HYDRA’s truck shouldn’t have been able to drive laps around the building until Toni came out.

“See, FRIDAY?” He says, talking her through another security lapse he’s noticed.

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes. I need more exterior cameras. Or Boss to give me permission to use other people’s cameras, but something about  _ that’s illegal, FRIDAY, we don’t violate civil liberties if we can avoid it. _ ”

Bucky smiles, hearing Toni’s voice come out of FRIDAY’s speakers. “Well…if you can point me to some cameras and play tech support, I’ll install them.”

Which leads to Bucky popping open Tower windows—which  _ should not _ open, but that can be his next project—and climbing out on ledges. 

“Boss has seen camera footage of you right now and is very concerned.”

“Tell her I tend to bounce. Falls don’t kill me.”

FRIDAY is silent for a moment, clearly relaying his message. “She says that’s not funny. Also, that you may live, but whoever you land on probably won’t.”

“Tell her I’m safe. Promise.”

He is, relatively speaking. The Winter Soldier is better than to fall off a damn roof.

Somehow, though, he’s still a little warm inside to hear that Toni cares either way.

When he gets back inside that night, cameras mounted and FRIDAY making sure he didn’t inadvertently leave any blind spots, Toni is actually in the kitchen, with a veritable feast.

“What’s all this?”

“FRI tells me you were working all day.” When he doesn’t respond to that, she huffs. “I remember that a hard working super soldier eats a lot, Bucko. Enjoy.”

“I didn’t do  _ that _ much,” he protests.

She cocks her head and looks at him, really looks at him. “You know you don’t actually work for me, right?”

“I think I technically  _ do _ ,” he protests. “Pretty sure we had that conversation.”

“It’s not your job to hang cameras.”

“It’s for security.”

She exhales, slowly. “Bucky. You can’t protect me from everything. That’s now how the world works.”

“But there’s a lot I can protect you from. So I will.”

She just stares at him for a moment. “Fine. Eat your dinner.”

“Not joining me?” He asks, which might be a bit ridiculous. Like she has to eat with him.

“No. I think I’ll go back to work. Have a good night.”

It’s ridiculous, but Bucky can’t bring himself to eat a lot. 

It’s about two in the morning when the screaming wakes Bucky from the light doze he’d fallen into at some point. 

He’s out of bed in an instant, not much caring about what he’s wearing except that it makes it hard to shove a gun in his waistband—these fancy underwear left in his closet don’t have the structural support to hold his damn gun in place—and quickly going towards the source of the noise.

Of course, it’s Toni’s room, the one she’s barely ever in, but clearly went to tonight. Which, some distant part of Bucky’s mind registers, means she was hurting and gave in to lying down to relax.

He doesn’t feel very bad for breaking down the door, even as FRIDAY starts shouting at him. 

She’s alone. She’s alone and she’s sitting up in bed, clutching the nanite casing on her chest, breathing like she ran a marathon, wincing with every breath. She’s only got the one arm right then, so when she realizes he’s there, she takes her hand from her chest and points it at him, a gesture some might interpret as stop, but he knows to be her repulsor gesture. The nanites start forming around her arm, putting the repulsor in place.

“It’s me,” he says. “Toni, it’s me. I…”  _ Heard you scream _ , he doesn’t say. She knows it.

Her hand falls, the nanites retreating, and her whole body seems to fall after it, like cut strings. “I…I…”

She can’t get her breath, he realizes, and some almost-forgotten instinct stirs within him. Steve. Steve, who couldn’t breathe when it was cold or dusty or he worked too hard or he was sick or a million other different things, back before most people had these inhaler things in their pockets.

He doesn’t think about that skinny, sickly little kid, and instead climbs into Toni’s bed, not thinking about much of anything except getting her breathing. He drops his gun onto the floor, puts his back to the alarming mountain of pillows at the top of the bed, inclines her into the v of his hips, back to chest. “Match me,” he says gruffly. “C’mon, Toni. Match me.”

Does she have an inhaler? “FRIDAY?”

“I’ve called Dr. Cho,” she responds. “She’ll be here in approximately ten minutes.”

“No,” Toni gasps, clearly making herself worse, getting worked up again. “No, FRI, cancel…cancel that. I’m fine.”

She’s  _ not _ , she’s not breathing and Bucky can feel the sweat sticking to her body, sticking her to him. Can feel her pulse, hummingbird-fast, can feel her too-thin frame and rattling breaths. 

He feels like he’s holding spun glass, wrapping his arms gently around her to keep her from darting off the bed. “C’mon, Toni. Breathe, and then the doc won’t have to stick around for long. Breathe with me.”

Toni sticks her hand back to her chest, back to that nanite casing, and begins to do as he’s asked. Bucky takes big, exaggerated breaths, trying to get her to follow along. After a few minutes, she does.

After a few more minutes—by Bucky’s calculations, the doc should be here in less than two minutes—Toni’s breathing almost normally. There’s a water bottle on her nightstand, and Bucky grabs it, offers it to her by putting it next to her knee. She drinks gladly.

Just when he’s worried about getting her more—somehow, without letting her go, because he can’t, won’t, do that right now—the doctor comes through the ruined door. Her eyebrow goes up, but Bucky refuses to feel bad.

FRIDAY would have probably opened the door for him, but Toni was screaming on the other side. It’s simple math.

“What happened?”   


He’s supporting Toni more than she is herself, at this point, but she’s coming back, albeit slowly. “A fuckton of PTSD, bad lungs, what else is new?” Toni says, and it would sound flippant if her voice wasn’t raw.

The doctor steps closer, almost trips on the gun but avoids it at the last second. She then looks them over, and that’s when Bucky realizes the state they’re in. Both just in shorts, it’s not exactly a great look.

Whatever. Toni’s breathing again, and Bucky won’t feel bad for that.

“Can I listen?” Dr. Cho asks. Toni nods shortly, so she opens her bag and pulls out a stethoscope. Bucky gets out of the way so she can listen on Toni’s back too, but he’s still supporting most of Toni’s weight, so he doesn’t go far.

“I’m going to prescribe an inhaler, for attacks,” she says. “You’ll take it at the first sign of trouble, in addition to the daily one you already have.” 

Toni nods shortly. “This was supposed to stop, Helen.”

Cho sighs, her phone already out. “Toni. You’re too smart to purposefully mishear us. You know everything about your treatment was experimental, in circumstances that will never be duplicated again.”

“This isn’t what I was promised.”

“This is  _ exactly _ what we promised you. You’re alive, and every symptom is mostly manageable with medication and intervention.”

“I know, I should consider myself lucky,” Toni says dully.

Cho hesitates. “I’m not psych, but…”

“No,” Toni says steadily. “You’re not. Don’t worry about it.” She’s not looking at Cho, not looking at Bucky, instead staring off into nothing.

“It’s setting you back, Toni.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Bucky bites his lip. Stops himself from saying anything. 

PTSD. He knows what that is, now, although they still called it shell-shock and battle fatigue when he was growing up. And Toni used that word, for herself. Which makes sense, that she’d experience it. 

But she’s apparently not being treated for it.

Still, Cho is done with the stethoscope and Toni looks ready to fall over again, So Bucky leaves that train of thought to get into position to fully support her once again. 

“You want something to sleep?” Cho asks.

“No,” Toni says. Her fingers start drumming against her chest. Nervous, Bucky knows. Something about that makes her nervous.

Cho sighs. “I…I’m going to crash here, for the rest of the night. I…it’s your choice, Toni. But  _ please _ , have FRIDAY wake me if you need anything.”

As soon as she’s gone, Toni starts wiggling. “Sorry to collapse all over you.”

“It’s okay,” he says, torn between holding her steady and following her wish to clearly be out of his hold. He moves, helps her recline gently onto the pile of pillows. “Good thing you have so many pillows, huh?”   


“Can’t always breathe, if I lie all the way down,” she says. “Pillows behind my back help.”

_ Jesus _ . Bucky tries not to think about how damn breakable this woman is. How far she’s broken down her body, the damage she’s taken, all to save the world.

And then he reminds himself why he’s here, feels sharp vindication in his gut. She  _ needs _ him, or someone, and with the apparent lack of available options, it might as well be him. He’s glad it’s him.

“I get you anything?”

She considers, hesitates, but then nods. “More water? I…tap in the bathroom is fine.”

Bucky nods, takes the water bottle and fills it in the bathroom. He also returns with a washcloth, damp and warm, because dried sweat won’t feel very good.

He sets the water bottle on the nightstand, and offers the washcloth. She sighs, but starts washing herself one-handed.

The issue comes with getting her back, or anywhere she struggles to reach with just her left arm. “Here,” he says, taking the cloth from her and gently wiping the rest of her down. 

She’s  _ covered _ in scars, scars her shirts usually cover, for the most part. He’d known, had seen them after their stay in HYDRA, but it’s something else to be almost touching them.

“Is this the stones?” He asks, before he can tell himself to keep his big mouth shut.

Her eyes are closed. “Most of them.”

Before he can shove his foot any further in his mouth, there’s a small meowing from the door. Toni opens her eyes. “Hey, kitty,” her voice is still hoarse, but she’s smiling a bit. Alpine creeps closer, and Bucky makes a mental note to get the cat some of those fancy treats Toni ordered.

When Alpine jumps up on the bed and sits by Toni’s hip, purring up a storm, Bucky thinks about dumping the whole bag of treats into her bowl. Toni trails her hand across Alpine’s back. “I read that purring cats are good for sick people.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” Her eyes droop closed again. Bucky’s done washing her. Her hair is sweat-matted and tangled, but he can’t do much short of getting her in the shower, and he’s not going to move her. He drops the wash cloth on the floor, near his gun. 

“How’re you feeling?”

“Like my lungs are full of glass.” She hesitates a second, bites that full bottom lip. “I, uh…thanks. For coming when I needed someone.”

He preens a bit, but on the inside. “Always,” he promises. “What I’m here for.”

She cracks one eye. “You are _ not _ here for this, Bucky.”

He shrugs. “I’m willing to be.”

She sighs, seemingly not ready to fight him. “I…there’s no chance in hell I’m getting back to sleep, but even I admit my limits sometimes. I need to stay in bed. You…” she shakes her head. “Never mind.”

“Toni.”

“You wanna stay?” She invites, looking anywhere but at him. “I’ll probably watch a movie.”

Bucky settles himself on the bed next to her, reclining on his own share of pillows. “My pleasure,” he says, because it is. Any moment she allows him to be there is a pleasure.

So, in the darkened bedroom, Toni’s still-labored breathing and a cat between them, Toni introduces him to  _ Lord of the Rings _ .

FRIDAY takes the opaque filter off of Toni’s windows as the final film finishes. Toni  _ has  _ dozed, although it was very light, and she’s awake again.

In the light of day, Bucky realizes once again how this all looks. Toni isn’t wearing a shirt still, and while last night it was strictly medical, no more, it’s certainly different in the light of day.

She’s scarred, from the stones and something clearly older, a web of darkened and sunken scars around where she keeps her nanite casing. Toni doesn’t look like she once did, that’s for sure. Toni, who once or twice posed topless for magazines—Bucky’s not embarrassed to admit he’s seen those pictures, not when she allowed them to be taken, published—certainly shows the years now.

Bucky Barnes shows the years too. He remembers the picture from that damn museum display, the kid he’d been, and how far that guy is in his rearview. Just like, perhaps, Toni’s past is.

It shows her survival, too, because each scar, each dip in her skin, means another obstacle she overcame, another life she saved—her own, her friends, strangers, New York, the world. 

She’s not looking at him, eyes still lazily closed, but in the light of day, Bucky feels almost ashamed of his thoughts, flush climbing up his face. 

If he were a gentleman, he’d offer her his own shirt, except he’s in her bed, has been all night, in nothing but his underwear.

“See something you like?”

Bucky flinches, realizes she’s opened her eyes, her good eye watching his face intently. She laughs at his flinch, which sets off coughing, but thankfully it’s short-lived. “Relax, Bucky. I know what it looks like.”

He frowns, not liking how that sounds. Like the scars are a  _ problem _ . 

But he doesn’t know how to talk about it without saying he  _ was _ staring, that he’s that kind of asshole, so he lets it sit. “You want breakfast?”   


“I don’t eat breakfast,” she says, stretching slightly in bed.

He frowns. “I know for a fact your antibiotics are supposed to be taken with food.”

She turns to him enough just to give him a bit of a glare. “Nosy. No one likes people who stick their nose in other people’s business.”

“It’s my job,” he says, getting out of bed, picking his gun up off the floor. 

“It’s really not,” she calls after him, but he’s already out of her room, passed the broken door he’ll definitely have to replace today.

“FRIDAY? Can you get a new door here?”

“It’s already on its way.”

“I can machine one myself!” Toni calls.

Bucky restrains himself from saying she probably shouldn’t get out of bed. That going down to her lab sounds like a recipe for disaster. Instead, he just says, “FRIDAY already ordered it.”

He can hear her huff, but she doesn’t continue to argue as he heads to his room, pulling on jeans and a shirt, putting the gun away.

He makes a breakfast spread, fruit and toast with peanut butter, eggs and bacon, hoping something will tempt Toni. He adds juice and coffee and the little orange bottles of pills to the tray, and carries it back to her room.

She’s changed too, while he was gone, in leggings and a t-shirt now. She studies the tray, but shrugs and eats a whole banana before going for the pills.

“Stupid child caps,” she huffs.

Bucky takes the bottle and pops it open. “You…uh….your arm,” he says, an inarticulate mess, but it’s an awkward question to ask.

“Takes a lot of energy and control, and I’m a little short on that right now. I mean, I could. Obviously. Didn’t I almost shoot you last night?” At his nod, she nods, too. “See? I could. ‘Cause I can take care of myself.”

“You keep saying that.”

“It remains true.”   


“I know,” Bucky says, picking up the second bottle of pills and popping the cap for her. “I know you  _ can _ . Look, I was frozen, mind-wiped, on the run, and then in the most isolationist country on the planet during your entire life time, and even I know what you can do. But…I also know you’ve had the shit kicked out of you. And that you don’t prioritize watching your own back. Let me pick up the small things.”

“Small things, huh?” She says after a moment.

“You need someone to watch your back. I’m here.”

“And how does any of this fall under watching my back?”   


“How does it not?” He asks. But it’s obvious. Toni Stark has very few people, most of whom can rarely be around. They love her—Rhodes and Potts are proof enough—but they can’t prioritize Toni. Not like she maybe needs right now. They have lives, jobs. Important jobs, too, and Bucky doesn’t blame them for that. But Toni needs someone.

Well, no more. Bucky can—and will—change that.

She sighs, finished with her single banana and her pills, reclining back into the pillows. “Alright, Bucky. We’ll…we’ll figure this out. Just as long as you don’t forget. I can take care of my own damn self.”

Bold, he reaches out to trace a still-visible scar, creeping above her shirt’s neckline, one of the ones caused by taking out Thanos and his armies. “Couldn’t ever forget, Doll.”

Later that day, when he’s done replacing the door, picked up her inhaler, and gotten her to eat a sandwich, he sits at the foot of her bed. The bed’s so big he feels miles away, misses the closeness from last night, but keeps himself in place.

She looks better. There’s some color back in her face, and while she doesn’t look well-rested, she at least looks relaxed, not like someone on the verge of passing out or panicking. “How do I help, if this happens again?”   


She turns to him, focusing her good eye on him. “You don’t have to do anything.”

“Toni.”

She sighs. “What you did last night was…good. Great.”

“I dealt with symptoms. I didn’t fix the problem.”

“You got me breathing again. I’m still breathing, everything else will follow.”

He studies her for a minute. “Is it HYDRA? Is that what you dreamed about?”   


She laughs hollowly. “No. I’m sure that’ll hit at some point, but honestly, it’s not even in my top twenty.”

Which is not at  _ all _ a good sign. Bucky doesn’t say anything though, waits it out. She sighs. “Thanos.”

He doesn’t quite know what to say, doesn’t know how to talk about the greatest threat the world has ever known that this woman faced head-on, with homemade armor and not an ounce of super strength. “That must be…a lot.”

The rough, broken laugh crackles between them. “You have no idea.”   


“You want to talk about it?”   


She side eyes him. “What’re you, in cahoots with Cho? Want me to do some talk therapy?”   


He’s never spoken to Cho without Toni present, but that hardly matters. Maybe he  _ is _ in league with her, because he can think of far worse things than Toni doing some therapy. “Would it be so bad?”   


“Who the hell is going to listen to any of this?”

“Me,” he says, hears defiance creeping into his voice.  _ Me _ . Because, dammit, he can do that much for her.

“Not your job,” she reminds him softly.

“Stop saying that. Goddammit, it is if I want it to be.”   


She sighs. “Who the hell, you included, is equipped to process the end of the world with me?”   


That’s a fair enough point, but somehow, it doesn’t really seem like the end all, be all, for her. “People don’t gotta experience what you did to listen.”

He thinks Princess Shuri told him something similar, back in Wakanda. He hadn’t done much therapy, beyond making sure his trigger words really were disabled. But she had said it, and, hell, he’d had to talk about the Winter Soldier a bit, to clear his triggers.

Toni’s silent as the grave, playing with a thread on her shirt, not looking at him again. But Bucky just waits. “I knew Thanos was coming for  _ years _ . Could almost see his face, hear his voice, ever since I went into that portal. Could  _ feel _ him sometimes. Watching me.” She grips the hem of her shirt, then releases it. “And he knew I was coming too.”

Bucky swallows, considering that. Considering the  _ knowing _ that must have haunted her, like the ancient Greek myth. Cassandra, knowing what could come and being ignored.

Her eyes close. “It was…I can’t describe what it was. Just, his eyes…I know those eyes. Sometimes, I see them, and I see  _ my _ eyes. I see us failing, and him following through with his plan. I see…” She shakes her head, goes silent. 

“What do you see, Toni?” He asks, voice as soft as he can make it. Face, posture, too, not an easy feat for him.

She squeezes her eyes shut, remaining hand goes on her chest, curling her body up. “I…I see what he wanted. What everyone said would happen. Toni Stark, going to destroy the world, right? Thanos was so convinced…he’d been in my head. Thought I would…” She shakes her head again, two, three times, takes a ragged breath. “Thought I’d stand by him. ‘Cause we were, what, soulmates? Two halves of a whole?” She takes another ragged breath, and Bucky eyes her new inhaler, on the bedside table, just in case he needs to get it in hand and to her fast. “That’s what he said. Said they called me the merchant of death, said I was the world killer. Said I had a bigger destiny, we could fulfill together.” She opens her eyes then, looks at him, fierceness in her eyes, stubborn determination. “I see myself  _ joining _ him, instead of cutting off his arm. Or…or taking the gauntlet, only to do it myself.”

_ Jesus _ . Bucky holds as still as a statue, not sure what to say next. “You would never,” he manages.

She looks away again, like that determination burnt out. “How could you know that? You don’t know me.”   


“You saved the world, you saved New York, saved your friends, owned up to the wrongs from your company, went further than anyone could ask to fix them. You kept me safe for some unknown reason when HYDRA had us. You’re a  _ good person _ , Toni Stark.”   


She shifts, restless. “Looks can be deceiving.”   


“I’m the Winter Soldier,” he tries. “Do you think I’m easily deceived?”

It manages to draw a snort from her, at the very least. “I think your brain is half scrambled, Robo Cop, and you probably can’t tell up from down half the time.”

Hurtful, but probably half true. “My point is, I know bad people,” he says. “I am one, sometimes. No, don’t interrupt, listen a minute. I’ve known a lot of bad people, and not one of them would do what you did. Ever.”

She drums her remaining hand on her thigh. “Sometimes, you gotta lay on the wire,” she murmurs.

“Huh?”   


“Nothing. Only something I don’t believe in,” she says, looking at him finally. “I’m sorry to dump my shit on you.”   


“I’m not,” he says, daringly scooting up the bed, still with great distance between them, but at least halving it. “I—”

“If you say it’s your job, I’ll kick you out,” she says seriously, and he snaps his mouth shut. “It’s not your job to deal with my PTSD.”   


It  _ is _ , but he keeps his damn mouth shut, like she asked. “I want to help,” he says instead.

She sighs. “Yeah. I’m beginning to gather you might just be a very helpful person.”

Later that night, he brings her dinner, still in bed while she recovers. She looks at the tray, blinking in surprise at the chicken cutlets and pilaf rice, with steamed vegetables. “Thanks, Frosty.”

“It’s—”

“Your job, your job, I know. It’s not, you know,” she says, but her voice sounds lighter. Some part of him can register that as  _ joking _ , and really, if he’s made her joke again, then he definitely did his job for today.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some calmer moments, in the lives of Toni and Bucky.
> 
> Bucky develops a connection with a little blue Disney alien.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all!
> 
> If this feels like it skipped a bit for you, it's because you missed Thursday's update. I've moved to updating Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
> 
> This is a relatively tame chapter, where they are having a normal (for them) life. Bucky does have his usual slightly obsessive thoughts. They also watch Lilo and Stitch, and Bucky has some complicated feelings about Stitch that don't show great things about his pysche.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

Toni is back on her feet within the next twenty-four hours, and as much as Bucky would like to keep her in bed for a while longer, he knows a losing battle when he sees one. So instead, he picks his battles, focuses on getting her to take her meds, and eat, and, occasionally, sleep.

The sleep is still rough, but he can’t really blame her. Not when she’s told him a fraction of what waits for her, in her nightmares. And he does an okay job with the rest, so he considers it a victory.

Within two days, she looks alive again, is able to maintain her nanite arm, and, with some makeup, looks like not much ever happened.

Bucky eyes the outfit and makeup critically. She’s not wearing anything fancy, just jeans, boots, and a long sleeve shirt. Even though it’s relatively warm in the penthouse and outside, she wears the long sleeves, so he can only see the hand of her new arm and the scars that creep up onto her neck and face. But even those are muted, with careful makeup application.

“I’m going into the office,” she says. “They can’t go without me forever.”

Bucky gets out of the armchair he was reading the paper in, looks down at himself. “I need to change?”   


“You don’t need to come.”

“Should I change?” He repeats.

She sighs. “You’re fine.”

So she, all dolled up with makeup, and him in jeans that somehow came with strategic holes already in them, head down the elevator to the business floors of Stark Tower.

From what Bucky has gathered, most of Stark Industries' operation is still on the West Coast, including most of the corporate elements. But Toni has been living mostly in New York, and she runs a contingent of R&D from here.

Which means, once they get past the few corporate and sales offices still in New York, they enter a realm of scientists and engineers who seem too focused on whatever it is they’re working on to pay them much mind, beyond maybe a smile or nod to Toni.

Toni only acknowledges half of them, and it takes Bucky longer than he’d like to admit to realize that she’s not playing favorites, but rather than she can only  _ see _ half of them, what with the glass eye and all.

The realization doesn’t sit well with him, except for helping him solidify his need to be here, with her. 

He wonders, for a moment, if she could make an eye that could see. If she’s made an AI that has a personality, that can see and talk and live, surely she can give herself something closer to a working eye.

“I have my own lab,” she tells him, interrupting his thoughts. “But for SI projects in action, I tend to try to remember to come down here.”

Bucky nods, realizes she can’t see him. “How can I be helpful?”   


She shrugs. “FRIDAY has movies and stuff. I’m working on engines today.”

“I’m good at lifting stuff,” he tries.

She snorts. “So am I.”

Maybe once, but he shudders to think of how her lungs would take her trying to lift anything heavier than a jug of milk right now.

She starts with the fiddly little work, inside the engine, and Bucky sits on the stool she gestures him to and settles in to watch. Within thirty minutes, she has grease on her forehead and shirt.

None of that makeup has sweated off or smeared, though. Must be good stuff.

“What’s the deal with this?” Bucky asks, watching her wipe oil ineffectively off her face an hour later.

She looks up. “This? Efficient engine. Sadly, no matter how hard I try, the world still isn’t ready to dump fossil fuels entirely. I figure, at least I can minimize the damage until we’re all running off electric, or, hell, arc reactor tech.”

“You can run a car off an arc reactor?”

She pauses entirely now, turning to him. “I mean, theoretically? Someday, the world will run on arc technology. The issue is the same as everything: how to make sure it’s used effectively.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means mine powered a suit of armor that could blow a hole in a tank without any trouble.”  _ Jesus _ . And to think that Steve ever seriously told anyone she seriously tried to kill them in Siberia. “If the arc reactor isn’t so big it’s, well, literally unmoveable, I’m always worried what people who pick it up will do with it.”

“What could people do with it?”

“Nothing,” she says. “Theoretically, at least. But, well. History has shown us that there’s always one who’s smart enough to do it.”

“So, it’s a weapon?”

“It’s not,” she says. “Not my current iterations. Howard’s—well, I eliminated the early stage weaknesses. Can’t just be turned into a bomb. Not unless…well, it isn’t dangerous by itself. So, unless you build a suit, or some other weapon, it’s a harmless, clean source of energy. And that’s way, way beyond the average person. But…there’s always someone who knows what they’re doing.” She pats the engine. “Fuel efficiency is the current name of the game. But someday…” she trails off. “Someday, well. Gotta keep an eye on the future, right?”

She turns back to the engine, and Bucky settles back in to watch.

He notices the door open before she does, notices the newcomer. Bucky tenses, but the newcomer is clearly a floppy-haired, gangly kid, who is wearing a Stark Industries ID badge around his neck. “Ms. Stark!”

Toni looks up, and a smile breaks across her face. Bucky keeps half his attention on her, half on the still-unknown newcomer. In watching her, he sees the smile, sees the way the right side of her mouth still doesn’t fully rise as far as the left, giving her a slightly lop-sided smile. It still makes his heart skip, just a bit, to see it.

He puts his hand against his own chest—he’s a sniper, he’s a soldier, he’s supposed to have a steady heartbeat and steady hands, dammit—and watches Toni interact with the newcomer. “Pete, hey. Good morning.” Her eyes narrow at him. “What’re you doing here this morning? You definitely have school.”

“It’s three pm, and Saturday, and we have an appointment,” the kid—Pete—says without any hesitation.

Toni waves her flesh hand at him. “Eh, whatever. Rich eccentrics don’t have to pay attention to time.”

The kid smiles. “Sure thing, Ms. Stark.” He finally looks towards Bucky. “Hey, metal arm guy.”   


Bucky might not be the  _ best _ at social norms, but it doesn’t exactly sound welcoming to him.

It also sounds weirdly familiar. He furrows his brow, thinking it through, then realizes he heard it more than two years ago. “Spider-kid?” He asks, incredulous, because  _ damn, this is a child _ .

“My name’s Peter,” the kid says, pulling himself up so he’s as tall as can be. Which is still definitely shorter than Bucky, and the kid is thin as a wisp, but Bucky remembers what kind of hit this kid is packing. “Or Spider Man.”

Toni huffs. “You are the  _ worst _ at secret identity, seriously, how have you not been de-masked on CNN yet?” She complains.

The kid shrugs. “I mean, he already knew.”

“He  _ did not _ . You could’ve just said you were my  _ intern _ ,” Toni complains. 

“But then I couldn’t do this,” Peter says, and then steps closer to Bucky, uncomfortably close. “After what you did to Ms. Stark, you shouldn’t be here.”  
She sighs. “Kid—”

“You should be with your loser friends,” Peter continues like he wasn’t interrupted. “And leaving her alone, ‘cause she deserves better than you all.”

“Peter—”

“But she’s letting you stay here for some reason. ‘Cause she’s nice, I guess. And likes helping people. So I’m telling you right now, if you hurt her again—at  _ all _ —I’ll…I’ll kill you.”

The kid looks like a particularly pissed off lapdog, but Bucky’s not laughing. Kid or not, he remembers how hard Peter can hit. 

“Alright, done with that,” Toni says, stepping in between them. “Saturday, you say? Didn’t we say you were staying the night?”   


“Mhm. FRIDAY let me upstairs and I dropped my bag off.”   


“Good. So, nothing to distract us from science.”

Science seems plenty distracting on its own, Bucky thinks, as he settles back to watch.

He manages to get through to them around eight, talks them into dinner of some sort. Toni needs her pills, and she’s flagging a bit, Bucky can tell. It’s subtle enough, but he can see the way she’s slowing, the way she winces as she moves.

Of course, none of them are going to cook, so they end up with takeout that Toni orders, which Bucky is pretty sure gets delivered faster than it would for anyone else on the planet. 

“Alright, kiddo. Movie night. Pick something out.” She looks over at Bucky. “Something modern, some cinematic masterpiece that’s not  _ Lord of the Rings _ or  _ Star Wars _ . Sorry. Shuri did  _ Star Wars _ with him.”

“Boooooo,” Peter calls, but he obediently picks up a remote and, somehow, begins scrolling through literally thousands of options on the TV. 

Toni rolls her eyes. “Let’s leave him to it,” she mutters, going to the kitchen. She starts to gather her pills, and Bucky gets her a glass of water. Once she swallows them, grimacing slightly at one of the truly gigantic horse pills she has to take still, she grabs plates and silverware.

“Found a movie!” Peter calls.

“Be in in a minute,” Toni calls back. She turns to Bucky. “Would you…the inhaler?”   


Bucky nods, and goes to grab it from her room, makes a mental note to maybe see if they can get a second one, have it in a few different locations, before hurrying back.

“You okay?” He asks as he leaves it on the counter next to her. She picks it up, takes two puffs, and nods.

“Sure. Just a little…well, ya know. And with the kid here…I don’t want him to see that.”   


She takes a minute to breathe, drops the inhaler into a drawer, and carries plates and silverware into the other room. 

Peter’s on the floor, Alpine in his lap, and she’s got a smug look on her face, purring and soaking up the attention. “I didn’t know you got a cat, Ms. Stark!”

“She’s Bucky’s.”   


Peter gives Bucky a contemplative look, even as he continues to pet the cat. “So, you’re not entirely worthless then.”   


Bucky thinks he should be offended, but, really, he’s far more amused. And Alpine, the con artist, sits there soaking up all of Peter’s attention, until Toni puts out her food bowl. At that point, she daintily hops off Peter, and walks away while the boy makes grabby hands and sad sounds at her.

“What is this?”

“Lilo and Stitch. Haven’t seen it in years!” Peter says, grabbing a plate and already piling food out of the cartons and onto the plate.

“And what’s this one about?” Toni asks, moving the kid’s leg so she can sit down.

“You know,  _ ohana? Ohana means family? _ No? Then you gotta see this one, Ms. Stark. Robot-man. You too, since your movie taste is so outdated.”

Toni pushes his shoulder gently. “Don’t use Robot-man as an insult. I like robots.”

It’s probably irrational that Bucky feels a thrill zap through him, like static shock. He’s not a robot. Not really.

Peter considers that. “Fair, I guess. I’ll work on it. He still is older than dirt.”

Toni side-eyes Bucky, then shrugs. “Disney evolved since you were a kid, Bucky.”

“I heard.”

So, once they all have plates, set up on little TV tables, Toni in the middle of the two of them, Alpine on the couch, curled behind Bucky’s head, Toni tells FRIDAY to start the movie. 

Aliens are an interesting start. Bucky admits to not being an expert—despite having shot more than his fair share, now—but he doesn’t think this is like any alien species he’s ever heard of. And then there’s the little blue thing. Abomination, they call it. 626.

_ Asset _ .

He flinches, then looks around, hoping no one sees it. Toni might, he’s not sure—he’s ashamed to admit it, but his momentary weakness slowed him for a second.

It’s a damn family movie. He needs to relax.

And then…then the asset—626, dammit—is with the small human child, fierce and quirky and needing so very much, and so so vulnerable to the fist of HYDRA. Alien abomination. Whatever.

“They need to kill it,” he finds himself saying. “Get it away from the child.”

“He,” both Peter and Toni say simultaneously. 

“Huh?”

“Stitch is a he. Not an  _ it _ . Don’t be rude."

“To be fair, I don’t think Stitch ever says he’s a he,” Peter muses.

“Either way, not an  _ it _ ,” Toni says firmly. “And he doesn’t need to be killed. Look at him. He’s learning.”

Assets can learn, Bucky thinks. That doesn’t stop them from being effective killers. Just the opposite, really.

But he…supposes he sees Toni’s perspective. The little blue thing—Stitch, he, alien, asset—clearly develops a bond with the girl, and when he croaks out that he’s waiting for his family, Bucky feels his heart break.

Toni leans into his side. It’s just slight, not fully putting her weight on him. Just— _ there _ .

He looks to her, trying to figure out if she needs something, if she’s not feeling well, if she lost her balance. But she’s still watching the screen, not paying him much attention other than  _ being there _ .

In a daring move, Bucky pushes a little back into her, being very, very careful not to upset her balance, not to put any of his weight on her.

She leans more fully against him, and Bucky has to admit, he’s torn between that and the end of the movie. Fortunately, he has a great capacity for multi-tasking.

“ _ This is my family. I found it, all on my own. _ ”

Bucky swallows. He  _ knows _ what these feelings are, isn’t an idiot, has a good enough grasp on what it means to be human that he can remember.

It’s a goddamn cartoon, he reminds himself. Just a cartoon.

_ This is my family. I found it, all on my own. _

When the movie ends, Toni tells Peter it’s his job to put the leftovers away before the lights even come back on, and turns to Bucky as soon as he’s gone, worry clear on her face. He doesn’t like that, doesn’t like her worry, wants to ease it, doesn’t know how.

“You okay?” She asks softly, her flesh hand coming up to gently touch his hand.

“I’m fine.”

She tilts her head, considering him. “Alright, I’ll believe you,” she says softly. “But it’s okay if you’re not.”

“It’s a children’s movie.”

“With a hell of a message, apparently,” she says. She considers him for another second. “I don’t—we’re friends, right?” Her face twists. “Once you’ve seen me screaming so much I can’t breathe, tits out, crying my eyes out, we have to be friends. Or I’ll die of embarrassment.”

Despite the deep, deep unsettlement still sitting in his heart, something feels lighter. “We’re friends,” he agrees, because she said it first, so it’s allowed to be true now.

“Perfect. And, you know. I’m not great at the family thing. Or even the friendship thing. Small sample sizes and all that. But you know what Rhodey told me, long time ago? Drunk off my ass, about—well, about Howard—“ They both flinch, the topic not quite forbidden but also not welcome— “and how I  _ wasn’t _ sad he was dead, even when I  _ was _ , and Rhodey, he told me, well—sometimes friends were the best family. And that’s what we get. Even if we have to wait.” She runs her metal hand through her curls, then down to her chest, taps the center twice. “Might’ve been bullshit to get me to put down the bottle, but it stuck.”

They can hear Peter coming back. Bucky doesn’t know what to say. Toni takes her hand off her chest and clasps Bucky’s hand in her own, metal on metal, for just a moment. “We’re friends, Bucky. So.  _ Ohana _ , right?”

Bucky can’t possibly make himself say anything. 

Peter returns, and sits down by Toni again. “Are they all like that?” Toni demands, gesturing to the now-blank screen.

“Like what?”

“That! Emotional. Jesus, Parker. I’m an old woman. Have a heart, my heart is weak.” 

“That’s kinda Disney’s thing,” he says. “It’s a gut punch. You should see the sequel to this one. Stitch is dying.” He must see something on both their faces, because his eyes go wide. “But, uh, they save him, don’t worry! Still a Disney movie with a happy ending. Just, makes me cry. Every time.” He looks back and forth between them. “Why? Did you want to watch more?”

“Not like that,” Toni grumbles.

Bucky can’t help but agree. As much as he said they should have killed the asset—  _ experiment _ —he doesn’t think he could watch it. Not when Stitch has a family.

“Yeah, but, okay. That ones rough.  _ And _ it’s a direct to DVD sequel, so, like, you’re not really missing the Disney canon there. But The Little Mermaid? Aladdin? Lion King? Mulan? You gotta see those ones.”

“We’ll take it under advisement,” Toni says, voice fake lofty but the left side of her mouth quirking up, eyes sparkling. “For now, though, I think we’re done.”

When Peter, who despite being a teenager is clearly far larger than Toni, starts giving her puppy dog eyes and pleading for  _ just a little while longer, Ms. Stark, please? _ And Toni remains resolute, hiding—and failing to hide—the smile that lights up her entire face, Bucky doesn’t really know what to do.

_ This is my family. I found it, all on my own. _

The next day, around noon, FRIDAY announces that he has a package. Bemused, Bucky follows her directions to the mailroom, where he finds not one, but  _ five  _ packages, all with his name on them.

“You said one, FRIDAY.”

“My apologies, Sergeant.”

“What’s in them, anyways?”

“It is illegal to go through someone else’s mail,” she promptly informs him. 

Bucky sighs, getting the hint that he’ll have to open the packages. He hesitates, though. “You can confirm they’re not  _ dangerous _ , though? Right?”

“I am absolutely positive they do not contain anything dangerous.”

“Right.” With that, he awkwardly manages to carry all five packages back into the elevator and up to the Penthouse, where he gets a knife to slice the tape open.

A Stitch blanket. A Stitch plastic little doll. A Stitch t-shirt, with the word  _ Ohana _ . A magnet, with Stitch on it. A Stitch little cat bed.

“Where’d you even find this stuff?” He asks Toni, when she comes up for coffee.

She freezes for a second, before clearly forcibly relaxing. “The internet is a wonderful place, Buttercup. Why? Did you like them?”

Bucky has no idea why he needs a plastic doll, or a magnet, or why Alpine needs yet another cat bed. And while blankets and t shirts are clearly useful, he has a satisfactory amount of blankets already, and the t shirt would undoubtedly cover his body, but also stick out like a sore thumb in a crowd.

“Yes,” he says, and it’s not a lie. 

Something in her shoulders eases. “Well, then. I’m glad. I’m gonna…gonna go back downstairs.” She pauses in the doorway. “You can join me. If you want.”

Bucky does, a half hour later, wearing his new shirt and wrapped in his new blanket.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have a party to go to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all!
> 
> We're finally moving things along, here. I'm excited, and I hope you are too.
> 
> Let's see...Toni has some body image issues going on, here. Other people definitely do their best to feed into those, because other people are dicks. Bucky and Toni once again reference some photoshoots that Toni did back in the day that were a little more sexualized. There is some strong hints that Toni was in a verbally abusive relationship when she was about eighteen.
> 
> I think those are the warnings for this chapter, besides the fact that Bucky is messed up. How he feels about Toni is obsessive and wouldn't be necessarily healthy at any given moment. 
> 
> I once again want to apologize that I was unable to find a beta for this. I promise that I'm doing the best I can, but I know it's not enough.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

“How do you feel about going out in public?”   


Bucky looks up from his breakfast, now that’s he’s assured Toni will eat hers and take her damn pills. “Are we going out in public today?”   


“Tomorrow. If you wanna go. So. How do you feel about it?”   


He shrugs and puts his fork down. “I feel…fine. What are we doing?”  _ Fine _ might be a bit of an overstatement, but as long as no one tries to grab at him or sneaks up on him from behind or, somehow, starts saying the damn trigger words, he should be fine.

Even if the trigger words don’t work anymore—and he and Princess Shuri had tested them exhaustingly thoroughly—he never wants to hear them again. Can’t guarantee what would happen if he did.   


“How do you feel about dressing up?”

He considers it. “Suit or dress uniform?”   


Now it seems her turn to consider it, her fork hanging in her hand, as she processes that. Bucky can’t help but stare, the way she bites her lip while thinking, the far away look in her eye. The way the light catches her eye funny like that, makes it spark a bit. “Dress uniform. That’s a…that’s a thing. Jesus. Uh. What’re your thoughts on that?”   


“I don’t have one. A uniform, I mean. I don’t think it’s a problem. ”

“I can take care of it,” she rushes to assure him. “So, if you’ll dress up and you don’t mind going out in public, would you come to tomorrow night’s September Foundation Gala?”

If Toni’s going, he’s going too. That’s not really up for debate. He supposes the only difference is if he goes all dolled up for a party, or if he watches from a distance. “I’d be happy to come with you. What do I need to do?”   


“Dress up, smile a bit, maybe. That’s negotiable, I guess. God knows I can’t always give them a damn smile. Dance. Do you remember how to dance?”   


“Theoretically. I was good, too. In practice…” He hesitates.

She waves it off. “I’ve worked with worse. It’s like riding a bike; you’ll get it back fast.”

“I’ve never ridden a bike.”

“You know, I’m not sure if I actually have, either?” She laughs a bit, and finally takes a bite of breakfast. Her hair, a loose, riotous mess of curls, falls into her face. She huffs, then has to put her fork down to push it back. It immediately falls again.

“Here,” Bucky says, handing her a hair elastic.

“Thanks.” She takes it, and, before Bucky can even offer to help, she gets her hair up with a twisting motion, one handed.

“What?” She asks, when she notices Bucky gaping at her. “You have long hair and one arm too.”

Bucky’s own hair is also messily tied back, but he has two working arms right now, and he’d never been able to do it before Shuri gave him the second arm. “I…show me that again,” he demands.

She laughs. “Alright, alright, Frosty. Not that you’ll need it. Your new arm is vibranium. It isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’ll outlast the flesh-and-blood one. You’ll never be down an arm again.” She demonstrates the move, leaving a messy, short tail at the back of her head, pulling most of the curls off her face and neck.

“FRI?”   


“Yes, Boss?”   


“Grab Bucky’s measurements, will you? We’ll need his sizes to get him a uniform.”

“On it, Boss.”

“I can help, you know,” he blurts out. “With…with your hair. When you aren’t wearing the arm.”   


She stops, mouth already open to say more to FRIDAY, and turns fully to him. “Thanks, Frosty,” she says. “But, as you can see, I don’t really need it.”

She retreats quickly after that, despite her breakfast not being done, leaving Bucky to stew in his own frustration.

What on Earth does this woman need from him? 

The next morning, a box arrives for Bucky, filled with an olive green dress uniform, all pieces included. Bucky doesn’t try it on. He’s already sure it fits like a glove, probably even better than the one they gave him for all those press reels, in 1944.

He does take out and polish his shoes though, some long-forgotten habit guiding his hands.

Around lunch time, just when he’s thinking of trying to find Toni to make sure she eats, FRIDAY gets his attention. “The Boss is looking for you.”

“Where is she?” FRIDAY doesn’t sound particularly worried, so it’s probably not serious, but who knows. FRIDAY seems to grasp emotions just fine, but she’s a robot. Who knows what she understands.

“In her room.”

So Bucky hustles over there. 

Thankfully, Toni is very clearly fine, just staring at her bed and what appears to be dresses resting across it.

“Which one do you like?” She doesn’t turn around, and Bucky doesn’t have to be a sniper to see the line of tension down her spine, which seems so out of place looking at  _ dresses _ .

Bucky is by no means a fashion expert, and his knowledge of dresses dates entirely to what Agent Carter would wear and a vague memory of his sister saving for a new dress in 1938 or so, but he studies them at her request. The closest one is blue, like forget-me-nots, he thinks, then wonders how he remembers that. His sister, probably.

It’s blue, with a high neckline, and long, gauzy sleeves adorned with little sparkling stones. And while the gauze might be see-through, he knows without asking it will do a fair amount to obscure the scars underneath.

The other is red, metallic red, like a sleek car or the Iron Man suit. It seems to have no sleeves, just one shoulder covered, the fabric there fastened with a big gold clasp. Every one of Toni’s scars—even some of the ones on her mangled chest—would be on display.

Including her arm. The strong, powerful, Iron Man nanite technology, miracle of an arm, the arm she lost  _ saving the universe _ , the arm Bucky looks at like a miracle, even if he can assume others don’t.

It’s obvious where the issue lies. “Do you mind people seeing? Does it hurt you?”

“Stares can’t hurt you,” she says, as if by rote, as if she’s said it a million times before.

“Toni.”

She sighs. “I know what I look like, okay? I do. And it’s not a secret. A lot of it ended up on the damn five o’clock news. I just…”

“You don’t owe them nothing but what you want to give them,” he says. Let them try to take it from her, too, with him around. They won’t like the results.

She runs her hand over the red dress. “It’s not that. It’s just…it’s a reminder, you know?” She touches the blue one. “With the arc reactor, I had to cover it up. It was a genuine weak point. The less people who knew, the better. This…”

He understands, he thinks. While she’s probably far weaker physically than she was a year ago, it’s not a targeted point, like the device that literally powered her heart was. It just  _ is _ , maybe a too vivid reminder.

“I could cut the sleeve off my uniform,” he offers. “We could match.”

She laughs, the sound growing, almost as if to fit the room. She has to lean forward, one hand supporting her weight on the bed. “What I wouldn’t give to see that,” she murmurs. “No. That thing is tailored within an inch of its life and you will show it off to its best ability, not cut holes in it. Maybe next time…”

His heart beats faster, and not just because he made her laugh, although that certainly factors in. No. She said  _ next time. _ There will be a next time.

He shrugs, trying to not get caught on it. He still has to prove himself tonight, that he’s worth taking along. And, really, that starts right now. With the dress, like she asked.

“It’s up to you,” he says. “No one can make you wear either one. But—” He gets some shot of an old memory, the Bucky Barnes he was before the draft, maybe, and the words just come to him “—for what it’s worth, I like you in red.”

He leaves her then. She has to make up her mind.

Bucky waits in the living room, new dress uniform fitting perfectly and shoes shined to perfection. “She almost ready?” He asks FRIDAY, probably for the third time.

“Boss’ll be out in a moment. She thanks you for your patience.”

Sure enough, Toni emerges a minute later, and Bucky takes her in. She’s a vision, that’s for sure. Older, wiser, more worn than the girl who used to be on the cover of those magazines he’s seen, and somehow better for it. Bucky’s eyes catch on her curls, half pinned up and half hanging down her neck, the silver pins shining and obvious in her hair, with little blue gems winking at the ends.

He takes in her dress next, which fits her like a glove, the skirt a straight line down to some impressively tall shoes, revealing what Bucky just now sees as a slit in the skirt that goes halfway up her damn thigh.

The blue suits her, too. Almost as much as the red would have.

She fidgets a bit, when he looks her back in the eye. Her good eye, it looks almost blue again, like there’s a blue shine to the warm brown he likes so much. Must be the dress.

“I’m sorry.”

He takes a step closer. “You don’t gotta be sorry.”   


Her lips—painted red, bright red, and he realizes with a jolt he really  _ does _ like red on her—quirk into a small, sad smile. With the paint, it makes it slightly more obvious that one side of her mouth doesn’t move as far, although the scars themselves are almost obscured by makeup, unless you get too close. “I just…I put it on. I really…I really planned to do it.”

“You don’t need an excuse.”

She sighs. “I couldn’t do it. So. This is what we’re trying instead.”

“Pretty good looking dress,” he says. Tilts his head. “You’ve definitely worn something like that before.” 

She stares for a moment, clearly lost, then chokes. “You mean…Jesus  _ Christ _ , you were a brainwashed icicle when I did that photoshoot.  _ All _ those shoots. How the  _ hell  _ do you know about that?”   


“Before I came here, I did my research.”

“Pretty thorough research,” she grumbles. She doesn’t look him in the eye, but he doesn’t think she’s mad. “You watch my sex tapes too, just to be safe?”   


He hadn’t. That had felt a step too far. Plus, he was in a public library. He shakes his head.

She shakes her head in turn. “That…was a very different dress.”

He points to the hem, the stitching up the slit. “Same flowers.”

“Yeah, and that’s about all there was. This is like the old Grandma version of that.”

Bucky looks it over again. Tries to picture a Grandmother in it, can’t quite do so. “Ready to go?” He asks.

She shrugs on the silvery wrap, grabs a small bag, and then walks closer to him. The heels put them closer in height, although he still has a good four or so inches on her. “You really don’t mind?”

He debates offering her his arm, some long dormant instinct taking off. Decides against it, ultimately. Doesn’t want to give her one more thing to reject. “Doll. You can wear whatever you want. Whatever works for you. And, hey. You go to a lot of these things, right? Maybe you’ll wear the red one next time. Or not. Doesn’t matter.”

She nods, once, decisively, and leads the way out the door, him falling into step beside her.

“I can’t believe you saw those photos,” she murmurs.

He snorts, thinking of the gauzy dress, almost entirely transparent except for strategically placed blue lace flower details. “Think a lot of people did.”   


“Sure, anyone who read magazines in the mid nineties. I thought you had bigger things to focus on.”

“Well, ya know, I was unemployed for a bit.”   


She laughs lightly. “Alright, alright. Let’s go.”

The party is an  _ event _ , Bucky decides. There’s people everywhere, wearing fancy clothes, drinking fancy drinks, eating fancy little unsatisfying finger foods, talking about fancy things Bucky knows nothing about.

Toni whispers to him, sometimes, who this or that is, what they do, why they’re here.

The long and short of it, Bucky gathers, is that the September Foundation sends kids to school, and Toni wants these people to give money so they can continue to do that. An admirable enough goal, except she looks like someone is shoving her in the back with a hot poker the whole time.

When some rich couple wander away, she sighs, allowing her shoulders to slump a bit. “You alright?”

She rolls her shoulders. “Fine. Just need a break.”

“Think I see an open table.” And if it’s not open, he’s positive he can make it so quick enough.

“Not that kinda break. Just…need to not do the sales pitch for a moment. Dance with me?” She asks.

“You sure?” He looks her over. She looks tired, sure, but not really in any danger of collapsing, or anything.

She rolls her eyes, a weird effect with the unmoving glass eye. “Yes, Nurse, I’m sure, jeez. C’mon.”

She’s right. The steps come back like the saying about riding bikes. He doesn’t think about it, much, just lets it happen, their metal hands clasped together, feet just moving. 

“Fancy footwork, there, Sargant,” she praises, as he lets himself move beyond the basic step.

“Told you I was good at this.”   


“And I believe you.” How she does the steps backwards and in those heels, he’ll never know, but she does it like an expert. “Everyone’s staring.”   


“Do you want to stop?”   


“Only if you don’t want them figuring out who you are,” she says, smiling slightly, leaning a little closer. “There might not be press inside, but I promise you most people here are shameless enough to snap a picture.”   


Bucky considers it for a second, but the reality is that it was going to happen. People—Steve, the others, the government, everyone—are going to find out where he is. If he plans to stick to Toni—and he plans to stick to Toni, because she  _ needs _ him, because they’re, apparently, family—then the news would come out at some point.

“Do you mind? I’m the Winter Soldier, after all.” Probably not a good look, for her. The fist of HYDRA, all bloody and mangled, leading her around a dance floor.

“And I’m Iron Man, the Merchant of Death, the World Killer.” He’s heard the first two, tilts his head at the last one. “That’s what Thanos called me. Apparently, it’s taken off in some extra terrestrial communities. ‘Cause I killed the Chitauri. Hate to hear what they call me  _ now _ . Anyways. It’s not my reputation I worry about.”

He hates the way she says that, like maybe it’s his, like for some reason, his non-existent reputation might be in danger from  _ her _ . “Then I guess there’s no reason for us to stop,” he says, spinning her gently. “Someone just took a picture.”

Toni snorts. “Idiot doesn’t know how to turn the flash off on their phone. At least we can guarantee one that won’t come out that well.”

He spins her again. “Think they know who I am?”   


“Not yet. It’ll take a few hours. You’ve kept remarkably under the radar, since you came back to the land of the living. Right now, you’re the hot young boy toy that cougar Toni Stark went after.”

He looks at her, pulls her a little closer than the song necessarily demands. “I’m older than you. By over fifty years.”

“Mhm, but only one of us looks close to fifty here, and it’s not you,” she says. Her metal hand twitches in his for a moment. “I don’t mind. The fact that people think I could still land someone like you, even like this, is a compliment.”

It doesn’t  _ sound _ much like a compliment to him, but she probably knows better. 

The song ends, and he realizes Toni is breathing a little heavier. “Damn everything,” she mutters. “I need lungs that  _ work _ again.”

He makes a sympathetic noise. “Inhaler?”   


She shakes her head. “Not in front of these people. Not unless I literally can’t breathe.”

“Water?”   


“Sounds perfect.”

So they walk over to the bar, and Bucky gets them two glasses of water, which he watches the bartender pour from a freshly opened bottle with eagle eyes. Not that that would necessarily stop someone trying to hurt them—while he was more of a blunt instrument for HYDRA, he trained the Widows, once. Poison in the glass, around the rim, maybe, would be par for the course.

He takes a sip from each. A poison probably won’t kill him, but he’d likely be able to detect it. When he gets nothing, he gives Toni a glass. Leaning against the corner of the bar, she drinks fast, greedy, so Bucky gives her his own glass to finish.

“Toni!”

She groans, looks around. “Too late to hide,” she mutters, although he doesn’t think it’s for him.

Sure enough, a man in a ludicrously expensive suit comes over, standing right in front of Toni, practically boxing her in.

“Toni, long time, no see,” he says, shoving a hand at her.

She looks at the hand, but doesn’t shake, instead raising her glass to him, like she’s explaining that her hands are full. 

Bucky tenses, wonders if he should make the guy get lost. Toni hasn’t signalled one way or the other, but she doesn’t look happy.

“How  _ have _ you been?” He asks. Bucky studies him. He’s withdrawn his hand, doesn’t appear to be armed, but Bucky still doesn’t like the look of him, regardless. Blond hair slicked back, suit costing more than Bucky can truly quantify. Everything about him sets off the hairs on the back of Bucky’s neck, makes him wary.

Toni levels him with a truly unimpressed look. If she could, she’d definitely look down her nose at him, Bucky thinks, but the man has a good couple inches on her, even in her heels. “Well, you know,” she drawls. “Nothing keeps me down for long.”

“Mhm,” he says. “And we all admire you very much for it.” He finally looks at Bucky. “Who’s your friend?”   


Tony raises her glass to hide most of her face, taking a sip. “A friend.” She gives him a sideways look, but Bucky just shakes his head. No, he doesn’t really want to talk to this man. She continues. “But that’s not why you’re over here, Ty. You’re many things, but you’re not a casual gossip.”   


He smiles, and Bucky can’t help but compare it to a shark. “When you’re right, you’re right, Toni. I came by to see you.”   


Toni holds her arms a little bit out at her side, as if to say  _ see? Me. _ “Well. Here I am.”

“You had us worried, there.”

“Now, why would anyone ever worry about me? You all know I always bounce back.”   


He shakes his head. “One of these days, Antonia, even you won’t be able to beat the odds.” His eyes travel over her, appraising. “Looks like even this time was a little much. Didn’t come out unscathed, huh?”   


Bucky can only see the way Toni tenses because he’s watching, he hopes. He doesn’t think she’d want anyone else seeing it, not the party-goers, not this loser. “Yeah, well. I’m a phoenix. No one ever said burning yourself alive was  _ pretty _ , though.”   


“C’mon, Toni. You know me. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know you,” she agrees. “I know how you meant it.”   


He looks taken aback, just for a moment, before he exhales slowly. “Let’s try again. You didn’t used to be like this, Toni. Come, have a drink.”   


She holds up her mostly-empty water. “I have a drink, thanks.”

“Let’s get out of here, then. Let me buy you dinner.”   


“No.”

He studies her for a moment, and then steps closer. Too close, now, in her space, larger than her, and Bucky holds himself very still, coiled like a spring, ready if he’s needed.

“Don’t be like that,” he says softly. “I…what do I have to say, Toni? I’m sorry?”   


She takes another sip, pretending for all the world his proximity doesn’t bother her. “That might be a good start, yeah. About thirty years too late, though, asshole.”

“Look, Toni. Thirty years ago, I made a mistake, and you could afford to be picky. You’d just, what? Inherited half a billion dollars, and had the door held open to you everywhere you went. You’d just been on the cover of fucking  _ Vogue _ . But now…” He steps even closer. “You can’t afford to be too picky anymore, Toni.”

Toni’s fake smile seems  _ glued _ in place. “What’s that mean, exactly?” She asks, voice disinterested, eyes certainly not.

“Just…Look, let’s not lie. You’re covered in scars and missing an arm and an eye and staring down fifty, and I don’t see people lining up to be with you anymore. And before me, your last relationship was, what, the help?”   


“If you mean Pepper, the  _ CEO of Stark Industries _ , then sure. The help. And this is what I remember most strongly about you, Stone. You always were a massive dick.”

“Oh, Toni,” he says, shaking his head. “You always knew how to hit hard and hit fast. But you don’t mean it. You never meant it, I always knew that. You just…couldn’t help yourself.”

Toni bares her teeth at him, something someone somewhere might call a smile. “You need to stop acting like you know me, Ty.”

“I know you. I love you.”

Toni barks a laugh, then covers her mouth with her metal hand. “You never loved me.”

“Sure I did. And while people might not want you anymore, I do. I always loved your brain.”

She shakes her head, tries to step back, but the bar is in the way.

That alone would be enough for Bucky, but then Stone steps closer again, this time reaching a hand out. The second it lands on her wrist, Bucky has his own hand—the metal one—on his and begins to pry his fingers loose.

If he breaks a few fingers in the process, Bucky is more than fine with that.

Once his hand is off Toni—and it’s like Bucky blacks out, like that’s all he can think about for a moment,  _ off off off— _ he picks Stone up by the front of his stupid fancy shirt, and throws him to the ground a good five feet away from Toni.

The silence around them is deafening, what was an ugly but mostly private scene turned public in the blink of an eye. Bucky can’t find it in himself to care, except for slight worry that he could have upset Toni.

“You don’t touch her,” Bucky grunts. “Not ever again.”

The man stirs, and attempts to get up. “I could sue you for this, you moron. Do you know who I am?”

Toni steps forward, and Bucky wants to physically yank her back, put her behind him, even if the man on the floor is very clearly not much of an active threat. “Try it, you asshole. Try it, Ty. Do you know who  _ I _ am? I’ll bury you now. That’s a fucking promise. I’m not eighteen anymore, Ty. You can’t push me around.”

Bucky debates going over there and simply stepping on the man, breaking his spine or crushing his throat, he’s not picky. But Toni looks like the phoenix she self described as a moment ago, her small stature made large in her righteous anger, like flames really could rise off of her, and Bucky can’t help but watch.

Toni looks down her nose at the prone man. “You’re not worth my time anymore, Stone,” she says. “C’mon, Honey. Let’s go.” Leaving no doubt who she is speaking to, she takes Bucky’s hand—which starts tingling all the way up Bucky’s arm—and leads him away.

Bucky can’t shield her from every watching eye, not when they’re surrounding them. He does his best, though, stepping up to her side, using his bulk to her advantage.

And if he steps on some fingers on his way out, well, no one stops him.

The car is waiting when they get outside, and Toni slides in before the valet can say anything.

Bucky opens his mouth once he’s in the passenger seat, but Toni shakes her head. “Wait.”

Bucky closes his mouth like a trap.

Back at the Tower, car left in Toni’s impressive garage, they take the elevator back to the Penthouse. “What were you thinking, Bucky?” She asks, running a hand through her hair, dislodging several of the beautiful blue and silver pins.

It is probably not a good sign that Bucky wants to fix her hair—or help her remove the pins, let the curls down, he’s not picky—more than he wants to respond.

“I…did I upset you?”

She lets out a long breath. “Well, everyone got a good look at who you are now.”

His brow furrows. “You said they already did when we danced. And that you didn’t mind.”

She deflates a little bit. The elevator dings, and she wastes no time walking into the Penthouse, crossing over to one of the big windows, not quite looking at him when she speaks again. “Yeah, yeah. I just…I can fight my own battles, Bucky. Especially against petty-ante bullies like  _ Ty Stone _ .”

“He didn’t seem  _ petty ante. _ He seemed…”

“What? Like he hurt me? Sure, but Ty Stone wasn’t even the worst thing to happen to eighteen year old Toni Stark. I can deal with him, and it  _ isn’t your job to fight those battles for me _ .”

He closes his eyes. There are those dreaded words again.  _ Not your job. _ Jesus, then what  _ is _ his job? What is he allowed to do for her?

Instead of swallowing it down, he decides to do the probably braver thing and asks.

“What if—what if I want it to be?” 

She swivels around, eyes locked on his face. “Just to be clear. You  _ want  _ the job of beating the shit out of handsy guys, and my asshole ex?”

“I didn’t beat the shit out of him,” Bucky grumbles. “You’d know if I had. But...yes.”

Her eyes seem to be studying him, like there’s a secret even he doesn’t know, but she can discover. “Does that mean…what it sounds like? Are you asking me out? Romantically?”

He considers it. Is he? He wasn’t, not really. Hadn’t thought of it, mostly because he’s a washed up, brainwashed killer and Toni is the savior of the whole damn world. But… 

But he loves her, in some way. He wants to look after her, be here with her. Wants to give her whatever she needs. In all ways.

The old Bucky Barnes is in there somewhere, and Bucky remembers him. Remembers the charming smirk he had for pretty girls, remembers his eyes scanning crowds, remembers asking girls out.

That Bucky is long, long gone. This Bucky wouldn’t know how to do that. Doesn’t even know if he’s meant to, considering what he is now. There’s a little too much asset left in him.

But this Bucky wants Toni. In all ways, in any way. He knows that much.

So, he nods. 

“I…really? You sure?” She asks. Her metallic arm flexes. “If you haven’t heard, I’m not much of a catch anymore.”

“Don’t say that,” he says, unable to stop himself from stepping closer. “I don’t…Toni, you saved the entire world. You  _ are _ a catch. Always.”

“You’re sweet.” She steps closer, now. “If you’re really sure…”

“I am.”

“I…I’d like to try.” She takes another step closer, and one hand reaches out. She’s the first person to touch him that doesn’t make his skin crawl at all. “I…can I kiss you?”   


“Yes.” It comes out as a whisper. 

Her other hand comes up to his chest now, too. Still in her heels, she leans up easily, and presses her lips to his.

Bucky’s hands come up automatically, one on her back, the other on her hip, pulling her a little closer into the kiss. 

Toni pulls away a moment later, smiling crookedly before she bites her bottom lip. Bucky’s eyes can’t help but track the white teeth on the slightly smudged red paint. “Good?” 

Bucky kisses her again, very gentle this time, the slightest press of lips. “Good,” he confirms.

Toni smiles up at him, eyes a little starry, and Bucky can’t help but kiss her again.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellllooooo all!
> 
> Sorry this is late, but, in my defense, what even is time anymore?
> 
> So, in this chapter you get something you've been waiting for: Toni talks about her health. She's gone through some physically traumatic stuff, all.
> 
> This chapter is also NSFW. Yup, we're there. If you don't want the scene, you have to stop at "When they make it home" and skip the rest of the chapter.
> 
> You should know that Toni's got issues. She's still pretty insecure about her body, and they discuss it. Also, what's happened to her--namely, in this case, Thanos, but also other things--has traumatized her.
> 
> Also, I feel I should say that the way Bucky thinks about Toni/idolizes Toni is not the healthiest mindset. Some parts of it are great and cute, but if you're like "this is too much," yeah, I know. Trust me.
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this, all! Please let me know if you do!

Nothing about them changes all at once. In fact, the entire process is remarkably slow, small additions to what they had before.

But Toni lets him hover now, provided he also provides a kiss or two. He really thinks he’s gotten the better end of the deal, on this one—he gets both her kisses and making sure she’s safe. It’s really all he wants anymore.

They’re his first kisses in more than seventy years, and he knows his memory is trauma and blank spaces. He can remember his real first kiss, vaguely, and a few after. Maybe it’s time that’s made them pale, but, honestly, he’s relatively sure it’s just Toni.

She lets him in the lab more often, too, and when she’s not there, they tend to curl up on the couch together, her leaning against his chest, or her feet or head in his lap.

“Why was this movie made?” He asks, rubbing her foot, too long spent in those fancy heels earlier today.

She groans a bit, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees her sink even further into the overstuffed couch cushions. “Beats me. But, it’s a classic and you have to watch it.”

“No one needs this.”

Her smile, though, when he says that, makes watching the damn movie about a shark tornado worth it.

“You hungry?” He asks, gently moving her feet from his lap.

“I’m guessing you are,” she says, eyes slipping closed, not even watching the movie she’s making him see. “Sure, if you’re up, I’ll eat something.”   


It’s actually progress, compared to a few weeks ago, he thinks. That she’ll eat, and take food from him, even if she’s not on the verge of desperate hunger. So he leans all the way over her, kisses her cheek, and goes to get food.

“I want fruit!” 

So he brings fruit, blueberries and raspberries, and a sandwich for himself, and a pitcher of water and two glasses.

Only by the time he makes it back, she’s dead asleep on the couch, mouth open slightly, hair a mess.

Even with his arms full, he can’t help but stop to watch her for a minute, before finally setting his burden down on the coffee table, tucking the throw blanket around her, and turning the TV off.

He picks up a book to read, holding it in his metal arm, letting his flesh hand rest on her ankle through the blanket, as she sleeps the afternoon away.

Of course, nothing is ever easy for Toni. Peace doesn’t last, not for long, not when she’s involved.

When the nightmare sets in, Bucky finds her difficult to wake. She doesn’t respond to his voice, his pleading, “Toni, Toni, Doll, wake up, c’mon, you’re safe, Doll—“ and she doesn’t respond positively to his touch at all, so much so that he moves away, like he’s been burnt. She’s curled up on herself, one hand scratching at her chest, her metal arm twitching but not rising, dead weight.

“Toni!” He snaps, as loud as he dares go. 

Her eyes open, and she starts scrambling for purchase, getting her bearings even as she hyperventilates. Bucky frowns, then fumbles in his pockets; he knows she can’t sustain this type of breathing for very long.

Sure enough, moments later, she’s struggling to even get a breath. Her eyes, which had begun to settle—at least she knows where she is—are losing focus again, as her breaths come in rough, jagged gasps.

“Here,” he says, lining up so he can help deliver the inhaler he carries with him all the time now. “Here you go, Toni. C’mon. Help me out here.”

She stops struggling long enough to take it, one puff, then another. She collapses like a puppet with cut strings, and Bucky has to move fast to take her weight. Not that it would be bad for her to collapse on the couch, but he can do this for her. Hold her, when her body fails her.

It takes almost ten minutes for her to really begin supporting her own weight again, for her to huff and sigh. “I just need lungs that fucking work.”   


“Doctor Cho says the medication will help,” he tries to soothe, running his hand over her belly and ribs, to feel her breaths, coming more evenly now.

She shakes her head. “The medication is a stop-gap. Meant to keep me functioning. It treats symptoms, not the problem. It won’t bring me back to what I was. I thought…”

“You thought what?” He prompts.

“I thought I’d get lucky. Between the cradle and Extremis. But the stones…they’re something else.”

Extremis. AIM’s experimental drug, turns humans into super soldiers with essentially explosive side effects. He remembers reading about the details when he researched Toni. “I…didn’t know you had Extremis.”

People  _ died _ , on Extremis. People burnt up and died, at best, and exploded like bombs at worst. He holds her a little tighter.

“Yeah. They…Rhodey and Pepper made the call. They get to do that, if I…well. I wasn’t responsive, that’s for sure. My heart had stopped twice already, they told me. And I don’t…” she huffs. “Well. I’m alive, right? And Extremis, I solved it. Technically, I solved it drunk almost twenty years ago, but I mean I re-solved it. It’s…useful. Not only for healing. It lets me interface with the suit on a level I couldn’t before.” She pauses for a second, as if weighing her words. “It’s like a lock. The suit and Extremis, they work together. It’s why HYDRA couldn’t get it to work without me.”

It’s why her remaining eye glows blue, sometimes. Like electricity, surging through her body. The pieces click into place. The way her arm works without any evidence of the surgical hardware Bucky carries, how fast those nanites respond to her, to her  _ unconscious _ thoughts.

“That’s…something,” he manages.

“Mhm,” she murmurs. “Extremis is…Maya was an amazing scientist, everything else aside. It’s regenerative properties and the neuron pathways it forms…it’s incredible, what it can do. I mean, once I sorted out the nano-particle issue.”

“Nano particles?” Bucky half wonders if she’s going to clam up, if he’s pushed too far.

But Toni keeps going. “Maya was a biologist. She tried doing this the biological way. But I knew…it needed something else. Extremis is carried by nanites, and in the end, every cell in the body is rewritten. Not strictly just biological anymore.”

Well,  _ Jesus. _ That’s a heavy thing to think about. Despite what she’s saying, Toni Stark feels soft and delicate and very decidedly  _ biological _ in his arms.

“They thought it’d even save the arm. They didn’t  _ tell _ me that; they weren’t stupid about overpromising. But I can read the damn research notes. I mean, that was its original purpose, right? But turns out, it’s locked in this eternal battle with the stones.” With her flesh hand, she taps her shoulder, where metal and flesh meet. “It  _ burned _ through me. The arm, I lost it to cut out the worst of it. The rest?” She shakes her head. “Extremis keeps the…the  _ magic _ from killing me. Like the arc prevented shrapnel. If I lose it, I’m dead. There’s basically a new me every twenty six hours. That’s what Cho said; that’s the level of cells dying off and Extremis replenishing them. Horrific, but useful. But that’s it. Extremis isn’t going to do anymore than that. It can’t  _ fix  _ me; it can’t barely keep me alive. The full implications of what this technology could do… well, it’s intriguing and frightening at the same time. I could interface with my systems on a level not at all human. Like the suit nanites and me. But I can’t use it like that. There’s not enough power left over. It’s wasted on fighting the stones.”

Bucky buries his face in her hair. “It’s done enough,” he murmurs. “Kept you here.”

She sighs, and lets her weight fall against him entirely once more. “Guess I shouldn’t complain, huh? Got experimental treatments going on, the best tech and money can buy, I’m alive after doing such a  _ stupid _ thing.”

He has a lot to say, and a lot he knows she won’t hear.  _ This _ is why he’s here. Let him be the body she needs, let him take care of those things. She gave enough for the world.

She won’t hear it, though, he’s long since learned. “Can I kiss you?”

She nods, so he does. Slow, and gentle—she needs to breathe, after all—but undeniably  _ there _ . He doesn’t know if it’s more for her or him, but either way, it’s reassuring.

She sighs, a breath against his lips. “Guess there’s some things to be grateful for.”

He rubs his hand over her ribs again, down to the curve of her hip, where he squeezes a bit. “Like you being alive. I’m gonna go get you some water.” He looks her over. Still uncomfortably thin, still doesn’t eat nearly enough for a billionaire. “And a meal.”

“It’s four forty in the afternoon, you heathen,” she calls, voice not carrying very far.

He can hear it anyways. “And it’s been several hours since you’ve eaten. You missed your snack.”

He hears her mumble  _ mother hen— _ his hearing is too good to miss most anything in the Penthouse apartment, barring the lab—but he takes it in stride.

He worries about her. It’s his job, after all.

The day Helen Cho takes her off the antibiotics once more, Toni asks him on a date.

“C’mon,” she says, looking up at him from where she still sits on the examination table, big brown eyes imploring. Like he was ever going to say no to her. “It’ll be fun. Just you, me. We can wear disguises or something, avoid the paps.”

So they go get dinner at a burger place Toni knows, where the staff definitely recognize her but don’t say a word. The place is busy enough, but they’re left to themselves in a booth in the back, by the kitchens.

Toni’s worn jeans and a long sleeve shirt that covers most of her hand, and a hat Bucky kind of wants to knock off, even if he knows she’s more safe unrecognized. Her signature big, bright sunglasses have been replaced by a more muted pair, hooked onto her shirt collar now.

She seems very invested in making sure he has a good time, asking if he likes his burger and his drink and the restaurant, multiple times each.

Feeling especially bold, he takes her hand across the table. “It’s all great, Toni,” he says earnestly. “I…thank you for inviting me out.”

“Yeah, well,” she shrugs, not quite looking at him. “We’re dating, right? And I…like you? But I tend to mess these things up. Ask anyone. Ask Pepper.”

Bucky does not think it’s quite advisable for him to have a casual conversation with Pepper Potts any time soon, so he just raises an eyebrow. “I doubt you could mess things up.”

“Twelve foot tall stuffed rabbit.”

Bucky considers it. “Doesn’t sound too bad.”

She snorts, picks up a fry. “I just…tell me. When I’m too much. Or too little. I have a habit of being both, at exactly the wrong time.”

“I like you,” Bucky says, and she seems to suck in a breath. Not like she can’t breathe, though. Not enough to make him worry, so he continues. “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, Toni Stark.”

He’s never seen her blush before. Never.

It looks good on her, he thinks. 

It’s true, too. Toni Stark, hero of the universe, genius, all around  _ good person, _ is the best thing to ever happen to him. 

Bucky’s useful, he knows that. As the oldest son, he was useful to his parents and sisters, helping put food on the table. As an able-bodied man, he was so useful to good old Uncle Sam that they drafted him, then gave him specialized training, then shipped him off to a specialized unit. He was useful to HYDRA, in a myriad of awful ways.

He’s never been useful to someone by choice, before. Never gotten to choose his alliance, but here he is, and he would easily—happily—give his all for Toni Stark.

She looks at her plate, blush still prominent. “Yeah, well…” She pushes her mostly empty plate away. “Should I get the check?”   
  


Once she gets the check, they walk off down the street, and Bucky even takes her hand in his.

“Ice cream?” She asks.

“Sure.”

“You know, I’m surprised you’re into this, considering how security conscious you are.”

He shrugs. “You want to go out. I get it. I can’t keep you trapped inside forever.” And it was his job to protect her, not hers to change her life around. Yes, it would be nice, if she’d stay inside. 

But also people need to get out. People need to be with other people. People need ice cream sometimes.

And Toni, of all people, deserves to walk in the world she saved.

“Not into trapping me inside, then? Well, that’s good news,” she quips. “C’mon, we’re almost there.”

The place is…charming, and some part of it stirs mostly forgotten memories still in Bucky’s head. He doesn’t think the place is that old, but it’s clearly been designed to evoke a time long past. 

Toni orders a strawberry milkshake that comes out taller than her arm, and Bucky just stares at it. Here he’s been, struggling to get this woman to eat, and here’s the truth: she’ll take this sweet monstrosity with a smile.

He, of course, orders the same. Chocolate milkshake, almost the size of his forearm. 

Toni gets them a table, small and cozy and against the wall. It allows Bucky to sit with two sides of him pressed to walls, his eyes to the window, and Toni on his other side, far closer than she maybe needs to be.

He can feel her heat, can hear her heartbeat. He’s far, far from complaining.

In anything, he closes his eyes at the first sip of cold, sugary goodness, and listens to Toni breathe. Then, he makes a mental note to do this together as often as physically possible.

Toni slurps her milkshake, and Bucky can’t help it anymore. He leans across the small space and kisses her. What’s meant to be soft, grows deeper, probing tongue and metal fingers on her chin, careful, delicate, tipping her head.

Her fist is worked into his shirt, holding him fast, when he finally reluctantly pulls away, knowing she needs to breathe. “Mmm, chocolate,” she says, eyes half lidded, mouth quirking into that half smile that makes Bucky want to kiss her again.

So he does, soft, tender, letting his hand slide down the side of her neck, his fingers delicately skirting her hidden collarbones, going around her shoulder to her back before he pulls away again. “I’d’ve expected coffee from you,” he says softly.

She laughs, breaking the moment, but Bucky can’t say he minds. Not when she’s laughing like that, just for him, good eye sparking not just with Extremis, but also happiness. “Coffee ice cream isn’t coffee,” she says. “Strawberry is the way to go. Although, I might see if they can swirl ‘em next time.”

She doesn’t let him figure out a response, just tangles her fingers in his hair, tugs him where she wants him, and kisses him.

He goes willingly, easily, melting into her hold, her lips, her  _ presence. _

When they make it home—and it doesn’t escape Bucky how easily he thinks of the Penthouse as  _ home _ , when he can’t remember the last time he had one—Toni gives him  _ eyes _ , her good eye big and enticing and sparking, drawing him in without question. She pulls him into another kiss, then starts stepping backwards, and he eagerly, easily, follows her. 

She backs him into a wall, then continues to push herself closer, and he can’t do anything but go, go wherever she leads. His hands find their way beneath her shirt, pushing it up just slightly. He rests his hands on her waist, brushing her stomach, not daring to go any further without express permission.

She pulls away from the kiss, same eyes as before drawing him in, kiss-swollen, red lips capturing his attention like nothing else.

“What do you say about putting out on the first date?” She asks, smiling slightly, bold as ever.

“I say, is that really our first date?” He asks. Wants to kiss that smile. Wants to touch her hair, kiss her throat, make her moan.

_ Jesus _ , he hasn’t felt this way since…he honestly can’t remember when. Knows he was a bit of a ladies’ man, back in the day, knows because it’s in books and the internet and in museums and, somewhere, buried in his memory. Can even remember some of the dates, like a faded movie or something, but can’t remember any of the feelings that went with them.

For all he knows, maybe they all feel like this, this overwhelming urge to  _ give  _ and  _ feel _ and even  _ take _ . But he doubts it. Doubts he would survive it if it was like this every time. 

“Good point,” Toni murmurs, and then her hand is in his hair again, pulling him in for a kiss.

When she needs to breathe again—and Bucky’s careful, so so careful, won’t ever forget the feeling of her gasping for breathe, shaking apart in his arms like a glass figurine, won’t cause that himself, ever—Bucky goes for her neck, moving her hair aside and kissing gently across the skin there, making Toni hum pleasantly.

“What you do to me,” she says, and it’s soft, but he hears it.

“Do to you?” He doesn’t move away from her neck to ask it, and the huff of air seems to cause her to shiver. He catalogues the reaction.

“I promise this isn’t what I anticipated when I invited you to move in,” she says, tipping her head further for him.

He didn’t think it was. Toni might be a genius, might play several hundred levels out of his league, might be ten steps ahead of everyone, but why would she plan this?

“That’s what people will say, you know. I stole you from the other Avengers, live-in boy-toy.”

“And security guard,” he says absently, staring at her shirt collar, wondering if he can ask her to take it off, because it’s too damn high for his liking.

She takes his face in her hands, pulls him up so he’s looking at her. “You know that’s not why you’re here, right?”

He could argue it—he wouldn’t protest, if that’s what she wanted, if that’s what the job entailed. He’d honestly be grateful for it, because it’s a clear purpose and because it’s  _ Toni _ . Anything for her.

But it’s not what she wants. “I know,” he says, and then he kisses her again, to stop the train of thought.

Toni wants—what Toni wants is far less defined, far less easy, then someone to have sex with and someone to protect her. Maybe Bucky would prefer it if that is what she asked for—easy, definable role, no room for confusion, no fear of being out of a job. But then again, he probably wouldn’t get this, the way she fits so neatly in his hands, metal and flesh alike bracketing her waist as he kisses her, the way she pulls his hair to get him to the right height, the  _ warmth _ he feels.

The job is riskier because he doesn’t know what it is, not necessarily. And in HYDRA, that had meant punishment. In the military, that had meant secrets and death. But here, with Toni—

She presses up on her tiptoes, presses her whole body to his, and he can feel her heartbeat, humming-bird fast, can feel her lungs expand underneath his, can feel her warmth, spreading into him.

Greedily, he sucks it up. Warmth, warmth, warmth. Something to keep him alive.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she says, a little breathless a moment later. “How do you feel about putting out on  _ any _ date?”

“You sure you want someone seventy years outta practice?”   


“You see me bring anyone else home tonight?” She challenges. “I picked you, remember?” She tilts her head. “Seventy years, huh?”   


“Yeah.”

“Not even…” She shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter. I…I’ll treat you right, Bucky. Promise.”

He’d never even thought otherwise, never even had it cross his mind. “We doing this out here?”   


“Well. It’s our Penthouse, and no one else lives here,” she points out. “We could. If you want.”

Bucky  _ wants _ to see her laid out in bed. Bucky wants to lay her down and treat her right, best he can remember. “Your room or mine?”

“Mine,” she says, and then she, somehow, wiggles out of his arms, takes his hand, and is leading him in that direction before he can really start thinking.

Bucky’s seen Toni mostly naked before. He’s even touched her, held her, like that.

But now she’s taking off her clothes for the express purpose of him  _ seeing _ ,  _ watching _ , and Bucky’s not ashamed when he falls to his ass on the bed, shirt halfway unbuttoned and forgotten as he watches.

Toni smiles that half smile that Bucky  _ knows _ he would kill and die for. “Fierce assassin,” she teases. “Can’t even handle a woman taking her top off.”

Bucky swallows, manages to get his mouth wet once more. “Trust me, Doll. This is all about the particular woman.”

Toni snorts. “Oh, now, don’t start. I don’t do false flattery.”

“False flattery?”   


Toni won’t look at him, even as she unclasps her bra. Bucky forces himself to look away from her body—bathed in the blue glow of the nanites—to her face. This is important. 

“Bucky. Don’t lie. I…I know, okay? And I don’t mind. Hell, it’s flattering in a different sort of way. That there’s something you like about me that’s clearly not my body.” She looks up, even though she won’t look  _ at _ him, and gives him the self-deprecating smile, the one that’s a little twisted, the one he  _ hates _ . “Sounds arrogant, and I guess I am. But I had a lot of people fuck me for my body, so…at least I don’t have to worry about you still liking me when I start to lose my looks.” 

She says it like a joke. It’s not a joke, not at all.

Bucky finds his feet, moves across the room to her in two long strides. Her bra falls away as he gets closer, her focus clearly slipping, but he doesn’t pay much attention, instead wrapping her in his arms, pulling her in, kissing the top of her head. “Toni,” he murmurs, her name all he can say for a moment.

“Bucky, I told you—it’s not a bad thing. It’s—”

“Shush,” he says, and she does. “Toni. Doll. I like how you look plenty.”

She snorts, but doesn’t comment. Bucky pulls back enough so he can see her face, gently tilts her chin up. “I lost my arm too.”

“And you’re a super soldier. Peak of physical perfection. I’m…you know I’m forty-eight, right? And down an eye, and muscle damage, and you’ve  _ seen _ what my chest looks like, and I  _ know _ there are wrinkles now, okay? I do. I don’t need flattery. I’d sleep with you anyways.”

“There’s a lotta things I like ‘bout you besides your body,” he agrees. “We’d be here all night, if I got to listing them. Which I could do. You wanna hear them?” When she doesn’t say anything, he sighs, brushes a kiss across her temple. “But, Toni, I like looking at you too. ‘Cause you’re  _ strong _ .”

“I have literally never been weaker in my entire life.” She moves her head, loosening his gentle grip on her chin. “You—Christ, you know fashion shoots I did at eighteen, nineteen. You’ve seen me.”

“I saw a scared kid, who was brilliant and plenty strong, given everything. But now—Toni, no one’s quite like you.” If he was given a choice, between the eighteen year old Toni in the see-through dress, and the one in front of him, it wouldn’t even be a question.

This is his Toni, the one he’d give anything for. “Guess you have to trust me,” he says.

She huffs. “Bucky. I…Look, if you wanna look at this, more power to you. Knock yourself out. Just…don’t ever lie to me.”

“Never,” he promises, and then he leans down to kiss her.

She works his shirt open, picking up where he left off while watching her. Once she gets to his undershirt, she starts to push, and they seperate to get it off.

Bucky finally gets to take in the view. He’s seen it before, but now he can look. Now he can look without any other job in the world.

She shifts uncomfortably. Well. Maybe one other job.

Toni reaches forward and opens his pants, a quick move, and then works them down until Bucky kicks them off. While he’s busy, she flicks open her own jeans, shimmies until they fall off her hips, steps out of the pooling fabric, leaving them in just their underwear.

Bucky half wonders if Toni dressed up for him tonight or if she always wears stuff like this, but he can’t think too hard about it, watching the lacy fabric play across her skin as she steps closer.

“Like it?”   


“Like it on the floor better, maybe,” he offers. 

She laughs, bright and clear and somehow, making him  _ ache _ , deep inside. It’s the best thing he’s ever felt, he thinks, maybe enough to clean his soul, maybe enough to make everything worth it. “Why don’t you come help with that?”   


Bucky doesn’t need telling twice, just backs her against the bed, knocks her down—gently, infinitely gently, always, with Toni—and crawls over her. He kisses her hips, once, twice, bites lightly at her hipbone, which makes her leg twitch, makes her huff. Then he moves to his goal, takes the waistline of the red lace in his teeth, and tugs them down.

She moves to help him, lifting her ass, then her legs, and he does his best to keep his eyes on her as he moves. She’s watching him back, unbroken, mouth slightly parted, pink tongue darting out to wet her bottom lip.

So, of course, as soon as he gets her underwear off, tossed unerringly in the direction of his own pants—he’s a sniper, he’s very accurate, and he  _ likes _ those a little too much to leave them lying around—he travels up her body, wanting nothing more than to suck on that bottom lip.

He does, enough to smudge the red paint, but then Toni starts squirming. “Off, off.”

He moves immediately. “Did I hurt you?” He thought he’d been careful but he’s clearly so much bigger than her; if he puts his weight on her, it would definitely do damage.

She’s biting that lip again, not fully looking at him again. “I…I don’t like guys on top of me. Anymore.”

“Oh.”

“That’s it? Not gonna ask?”

“Do you want to tell me?”   


She’s silent for almost a minute. “Thanos was bigger than me. And he…he liked to use that.”   


There’s a sharp feeling in his gut, almost like his insides being removed with a vacuum. “Did…did he…?” Bucky’s heard the stories of what happened on Titan, no one ever said, but—

“Not like your thinking,” Toni says. “He just…I told you what he thought. Of me. Of what I’d become. And he grabbed me at one point, and I’m so much smaller. He was holding me…the only way I can describe it is like a pet. Like I was little and cute and easy to hold.” She looks somewhere nearer to where his eyes are. “It’s not just Thanos. He was just…everyone else was just human, but he was…well. I don’t like being small. And trapped. Not like this.”

“We don’t have to…”

Toni sighs. “Unless you’ve changed your mind—which I would fully understand, by the way, I get it, I am…well, a mess—but, unless you changed your mind, I still want this. I still  _ started _ this.”

“You’re not a mess,” He protests. “There ain’t nothing wrong with you. So, how do you want—” He doesn’t get to finish, because Toni rolls over onto him, metal fingers playing with his underwear.

“How do you feel about women on top?” She asks, voice more playful now, and he can tell it’s half an act, but he hopes it’ll become more real, if she’s just given a moment.

He wishes she wouldn’t pretend, not with him, but she’s had to pretend all her life; it’s unlikely to stop now. And then his thoughts on that topic are scattered as her metal fingers work under the band, grazing skin there, teasing.

“Good,” he manages, and she works his underwear off, careful, slow. “Oh, god. So good.”

“Yeah?” She asks, watching avidly as his cock springs free. “Want me to help with this, Honey?”   


“Want you—want you—Toni,  _ want you _ .”

She smiles, real, genuine, crooked and open. “Got’cha.” She pushes his underwear down, out of her way, and Bucky finishes kicking it off. Toni’s already moved on, grinding against his erection.

Bucky’s eyes roll back into his head. She’s  _ wet _ , soft and warm and wet, and he hasn’t—he can’t— 

Toni rolls her his again, the slow drag of him against her cunt. “Toni, I…it’s been seventy years, remember?”   


“This not good for you, Honey?” she asks, almost a croon.

“So, so good, but I…but you…”

“Don’t you worry about me,” she says, rolling her hips again. And that’s impossible, Bucky always worries about her, can’t do anything else, it’s his job and his purpose and his reason for living at all anymore, it feels like, but she’s so  _ warm _ and it’s hard to keep his thoughts straight.

“I—”

“This is good,” Toni says. Her voice has dropped, warm and a little throaty, and Bucky wants to bask in it, wants to live right here, forever. “This is great, Honey.”

She rolls her hips just right, and he must brush her clit, because her eyes slip closed, her head tips back. The hand on his stomach tightens, as if it’s looking for something to grab.

“Let me, let me…Toni, let me…”

She bites her lip, opens her eyes to look at him. “Think you can make me come, Soldier?”   


It’s not an order, but it’s the most pleasant, the most important, goddamn order the Winter Soldier has ever recieved.

He almost reaches out with his metal hand, thinks she’d like that, but no. Not this time. Maybe next time.

Long forgotten sense memory comes back to him, but in truth, Toni’s quiet mewls and moans guide him more than anything, stroking her clit softly, making a small circle, pressing, backing off, repeating the process until her chest is heaving.

“I’m gonna—Holy shit, I’m gonna—”

“C’mon, Toni. Show me. Bet it’s beautiful,” Bucky encourages.

It takes another moment, a few more twists of her hips, a few more moans and gasps, but she comes, using his cock and his hand and Bucky wants to preserve that face in a museum, wants to paint it, wants to never forget his greatest success.

Her hands are on his chest, her breathing heavy, but not enough that it scares him. With a trembling hand, she takes his wrist, removes his hand from her clit, lifts it to her face instead.

He goes off almost as soon as his fingers are in her mouth, bucking his hips against her warm heat, calling her name.

As he comes down, she releases his fingers. “Worth the wait?” She asks, voice almost gentle as she rolls against him one more time, before sliding off him to the side, resting her head on his chest.

He uses his metal hand to play with her hair. “Life changing.”

She laughs into his pec, the vibration sending goosebumps running down his arm. “Flatterer.”

It’s not, not really. Every moment with Toni is life changing, and he can’t deny that he feels like a new man, like there’s a  _ before _ and  _ after _ .

There've been a lot of befores and afters in Bucky’s life, but he can’t help but think that it was all building to this one.

He kisses her head. “Let me get us cleaned up.” 

She moans as he moves, but lets him go. In the bathroom, while waiting for the water to run warm, he looks at himself in the mirror. Other than the dazed look, he doesn’t look any different.

He certainly feels it, though, and it’s a feeling that doesn’t go away as he climbs back into bed with her. He tugs her into his side, and she curls up there easily.

Arms around her, he closes his eyes, and reflects on the reality that, if this really is his  _ after, _ if this is what his life has been building to, then he can say almost without a doubt that it was all worth it.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plot against Stark Industries emerges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look. I showed up. (Sorry, but what is time anymore?)
> 
> I hope you all enjoy my very late chapter.
> 
> There's a plot sneaking into my character piece. All science is 100% made up and completely bullshit.
> 
> Bucky expresses how he feels about certain other characters. He is an unreliable narrator who does not have the best read on people. 
> 
> Thanks all for being patient.

Bucky wakes up over the moon.

He stays that way through making breakfast, through waking Toni with coffee when she comes out, and through their quiet morning together. Toni is digging through digital paperwork for Stark Industries, and Bucky focuses on a book FRIDAY recommended. Their feet keep bumping beneath the table.

It helps, too, that Toni stole her panties back from last night and Bucky’s button up, and is wearing them at the table, as casual as you please. Bucky finds himself looking up from his reading a little too often, just to look.

“Boss, there is a call.”

“Look, unless they already have override access, I really don’t want to speak to them.” Her foot bumps his again, and Bucky feels a shock move from his foot, up his leg, all the way up his spine.

FRIDAY makes a slight buzzing hum, the sound Bucky has come to realize is hesitation, like a human pausing to think. “It’s Steve Rogers.”

They both go tense at that. Toni shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

“The call isn’t for you, Boss.”

Toni takes a rather ragged breath. Then she looks directly at him. “Up to you, then,” she says.

Bucky doesn’t really want to talk to him, not much. Steve is a remnant of his past, a messy figure in his mind, and the cause of some pretty awful more recent memories. 

But _ Steve _ is…Steve. He’s not Toni, Bucky didn’t choose him like he chose her, but maybe once.

After all, hadn’t he followed the guy into every back alley fight, and then into war zones? Maybe Steve doesn’t need him anymore, but that has to count for something.

Besides, he knows this Steve, how he is. He knows if Bucky doesn’t take the call, he’ll show up in person.

He exhales, then nods. “You want to talk to him?”

“No,” Toni says shortly, but she softens her tone with a kiss to his cheek and a squeeze of his shoulder. “I’m gonna get a shower. You…do whatever you need to.”

Bucky waits until she walks out, because if she doesn’t want to talk to Steve, then he’ll keep the two of them apart. Easy enough thing to do for Toni.

Plus, he does enjoy watching her leave. He’s tall enough that her pilfered short dwarfs her, but in moves as she walks, giving him a peek at the red lace underneath.

“Alright, FRIDAY. I’ll take his call.” FRIDAY even provides the little click of a line picking up. Bucky closes his eyes “Hi, Steve.”

“Bucky? Bucky, you okay?”

Bucky clenches his teeth, then forces himself to relax. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“I haven’t heard from you in months, Buck. I…I thought you were still in Wakanda.”

“And what convinced you otherwise?”   


“Buck, your picture, you and Toni…it’s on the news. What’s going on?”

Bucky closes his eyes. “Haven’t seen the pictures yet, Steve, but what do you  _ think  _ is going on?” Most any moment anyone might have caught them last night would make it pretty clear. Hell, if they got even a sideways glimpse of Bucky’s face, it would be obvious how  _ gone  _ on Toni he is.

“When did you even meet Toni again?”

Bucky could tell him. Bucky could tell him to the hour, to the minute, but somehow, he doesn’t think that would satisfy Steve. “Steve. What do you want?”   


“I can’t call my best friend? Now that I finally know where you are?”   


“Is that why you’re calling? Just to, what, chat?” It’s not. Steve’s never done anything casual like that in his life. He always has a mission. 

“I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be. I’m fine. Best I’ve been in a long time.” Bucky starts clearing the dishes left on the table, knows FRIDAY will just carry the call on into the next room unless he asks her to hang up. 

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

“‘Cause I went to Toni, pal,” Bucky says. He sighs. His hackles are raised, and for probably good reason. Steve and Toni have a history, more bumpy and ugly than Bucky really wants to think about, and Bucky is always going to take her side. And, on top of that, Steve pushes and pulls and prods in a way the Bucky of this century can’t stand. He wonders if he’d ever liked it.

But Steve and him have history too, and Bucky remembers enough of it to say that he and Steve owe each other better than this.

“Toni and I…HYDRA captured us,” Bucky says quietly. “She invited me to stay after that.”

“You don’t owe her—”

“Owe? Who said anything about owe?” Bucky closes his eyes, hands on the counter.  _ Owe _ . Like that covers it, the sneering, gross tone Steve says it with.  _ Owe _ her, like it’s dirty.

They all owe her. Owe her their very existence, and Bucky’s the lucky jerk who gets to pay her back every day, who gets to have her as his purpose.

He takes a deep, even breath. He’s aware enough to know that, whether he admits it or not, that Steve thinks it should be the other way around. That if Bucky  _ owes _ anyone, it’s him.

“She  _ invited _ me. Gave me a home when I was literally sleeping on the streets. I didn’t stay ‘cause I owed her anything, although she did keep HYDRA from shooting me.”   


It’s silent for a minute. “How?”   


“By letting them wail on her instead,” Bucky says, trying hard not to picture it. 

“That’s not the Toni I know, Buck. She—”

“Of fucking course it’s the Toni you knew,” Bucky says. Maybe he was HYDRA’s brainwashed puppet for most of the time Steve knew Toni, maybe he’s literally never seen them within a hundred yards of each other when it didn’t end in blows. But this is the Toni who offered to get Bucky a deal in the US even after they destroyed most of Budapest, who fought Bucky with a minimalized gauntlet in a skirt, who came to Siberia to help them. 

“Just, be careful,” Steve says after a minute. “You wanna stay with her, worked out…whatever with her? Fine. I mean, you  _ should _ be here—” Like a pet, the least charitable part of Bucky thinks, like a damned pet that Steve won, or something— “but if you’re getting something from being there, that’s…fine. But. Just remember. Toni will always be Toni, okay?”   


“I know,” Bucky says, and his tone, his little smile, just for him and FRIDAY, clearly doesn’t match Steve’s tone.

“No, Buck.  _ Listen _ to me. I’ve known you your whole life, okay? And I’ve known Toni longer than you. She doesn’t—how she treats people. I mean, look at it all. Pepper,  _ us _ . She doesn’t form real relationships. Just…don’t expect too much. I don’t want it to break your heart.”

Bucky…finds that he can’t even come up with a response. It’s too ridiculous, too desperate. “FRIDAY, end call.”

“No, Buck, I—” FRIDAY ends the call there. 

Bucky sighs and rubs his face. “He’s just gonna call back, isn’t he?”

“Safe assumption says yes.”

“I don’t wanna talk to him just yet.”

“Understood, Sergeant Barnes.”

Bucky makes his way back to the living room, sits on the couch, and just waits.

Toni comes back out about four minutes later, and her hair is wet but pinned back. She’s dressed for the office, her makeup impeccable, her clothes more armor than one of her suits. Bucky blinks at it, feels like he’s lost his footing.

She won’t make eye contact, either. “So. What did St—what did he have to say?”   


“FRIDAY didn’t tell you?”   


“That was your conversation. Not my business. Unless you want to tell me.” He sees it in her eyes, even as she won’t look directly at him. She wants to know.  _ Craves _ it, maybe. Needs it, for sure.

“Don’t have secrets from you,” Bucky says. He wishes she’d sit down, that she’d come closer. Anything, but hold back from him. “He, uh. Wanted to know why I never called him. Says he found out I was with you ‘cause it got into the papers.”

Toni nods. “FRIDAY just showed me. It’s…it’s a cute picture.” She waves her hand over the side table, and a little hologram projection of them in the ice cream shop appears, barely an inch of space between them. It does show Bucky’s face, and it is easy to see how gone he is.

“I like it.” Bucky smiles at the image. “FRIDAY, can I have this?”   


“Downloading to your tablet now.”

“Is that…is that all he wanted?” She winces. “Sorry. You don’t, uh, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” She still wants to know, though. He can still see it.   


“Told you, I’m not keeping secrets from you.”

“It’s not a secret if you just don’t want to tell me. Those are two different things.”

“Steve seems to think you’re using me,” Bucky says, because it’s easier to just tell her than let her go back and forth. He rather get it done quickly, he rather there not even be a hint that he would lie.

“Does he, now?” Toni says, still as a damn statue, about as emotionless as the face mask of the armor.

“I set him straight.”

“And how do you know he’s wrong?” She asks. “After all…he’s Steve Rogers. He does know me.”

“Does he? I ain’t convinced.”

“Steve Rogers had my number from the moment we met. Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, and what are you? Not someone who lays down on the wire, that’s for sure.” It’s Steve’s words but Toni’s voice, and Bucky doesn’t know which part of that is worse.

“Will you…will you come sit with me?” 

She takes an aborted step closer, but then shakes her head. Still won’t look at him, and Bucky feels like his insides have been scooped out. “Just…are you going to leave?” Toni’s voice is soft, whisper thin, shakes a bit. “Just tell me if you are.”

Bucky can honestly say he’s  _ baffled _ , that that is what she thinks of. Then the feeling is relief, lighter and bubbling inside of him. “Toni, c’mere.”

She doesn’t seem able to deny him a second time, and while she’s still stiff as a board when she sits, Bucky can at least get an arm around her. “Toni, it wasn’t a secret, where Steve was. If I wanted to go to him, I’d go to him. I’m here.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I chose you,” he says simply. “You’re a good person, Toni. No—a great person. I choose you.”

Toni relaxes a bit at that, leans against him. “I…”

Bucky kisses her head, getting it. Even the people who love Toni, absolutely and whole-heartedly, don’t always choose her first. Pepper had ended their relationship, because of Iron Man. Rhodes is active duty military. And Hogan knows he can’t protect her properly, and doesn’t even really try anymore.

“I won’t go anywhere,” he promises. “Never, ever. I’m here with you.”

Toni all but collapses against him, face hidden in his shoulder—thankfully the flesh one, softer for her. Bucky can’t see her face. He doesn’t think she’s crying, but she clearly needs a minute.

That’s okay. He buries his face in her hair, and just holds her.

When Toni pulls back to look at him, she kisses him once, twice, three times, because pulling out of his arms, putting a little distance between them.

Bucky’s not much of a fan, but he lets her go.

“I’m being selfish,” she says. “I…appreciate that you’ve chosen me. Really, I do. You have no idea…you mean the world to me now, Bucky. You, being here. I just…you can choose him too, you know that?”

“Why would I want that when I have you?”

“You can choose more than one person.”

Bucky…is not so sure. Sure, he and Steve can have their history. That will never change. But Bucky has chosen Toni, irrevocably and forever, until she tells him to leave, and maybe not really then. He’ll always be here for her.

He pulls her close again. “I choose you, Toni,” he murmurs. “Just you. And I’m happy with my choice.”

Things don’t necessarily change after that. They go out on dates—a little more public, now that the pictures have gotten out—and stay in on equal measures. Bucky starts to spend more nights in Toni’s bed than not, and is careful to never, ever crowd her, make her feel small.

Bucky also still makes sure that she eats breakfast and takes her meds, carries her inhaler and checks Tower security religiously. 

Things haven’t changed, but Toni does. She looks him in the eye more, gets a little closer, and Bucky soaks it up.

Finally, for the first time in as long as he can possibly remember, he feels like he’s done something  _ right _ .

Toni comes up from the lab far earlier than usual, and considerably more frazzled.

“What’s up?” Bucky asks, spatula in hand. “Lunch will be done in ten minutes.”

“Yeah, I’ll need to take a rain check,” Toni says. She runs her hand through her hair, which pulls some of it loose from the tie she has. Bucky watches the curls fall into her face, against her neck, and isn’t sure if he wants to fix them for her or just play with them. “Pep just called me. I need to be at a press conference in fifteen minutes.”

Bucky looks her over, sees the dirty jeans and stained shirt. “Uh…”

“Yeah, I gotta change fast,” she acknowledges. “It’s last minute, but what am I gonna do? Pep says go, I go. It’s why I made her the boss.”

Bucky looks down at himself even as he turns the stove off. The food will keep, and he can restart it for dinner. His jeans are clean, his t-shirt still spotless. If he throws a button-down over it, he might even look presentable enough to be seen trailing after Toni. “I can be ready in five,” he announces, thinking of weapons he should bring along.

Tony tilts her head, then shrugs. “If you wanna come, fine. Up to you. Meet you at the elevator in ten, then.”

Bucky doesn’t have an unlimited supply of weapons—say what you will about HYDRA, and Bucky does, but they’d provided him practically every weapon under the sun, which he does miss, sometimes—but he has a few. Knives and handguns, things he can hide easily.

So he shoves a handgun in the waistband of his jeans, doesn’t tuck his shirt in in order to cover the bulge. He adds two knives, too. Just in case.

When he gets to the elevator, Toni is in a skirt suit, grey with a white shirt, all very boring. Neat, though, absolutely precise lines, and Bucky gets a brief vision of the corporate Toni who doesn’t usually come out.

She quirks her crooked smile. “I know,” she says. “But what can you do? It’s a press conference.”

“What’s it even for, anyways?” He asks, as soon as they’re in the elevator. 

“Small explosion at an SI plant in Utah,” she says, tugging her hair into place even as they descend. “No one was hurt, thank God. Happened overnight.”

“What happened?”

“Reactor core. I can’t…all Pep knows is it was the reactor, and I’m gonna have to go out there to sort it out. She’s there right now, dealing with it in person, and I’m gonna join her as soon as I make my statement.”

“Should’a told me, I’d’ve packed.”

Toni snorts as the elevator stops on the main floor and she exits. “I think I can give you a little better than five minutes. Also. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

Bucky can absolutely be packed in five minutes—what else does he need? A coat, maybe, and one change of clothes to look presentable, maybe a second if they’ll be gone a while—but he just nods and follows Toni. “Of course I’m coming. It’s—“

Toni frowns. “Your job. I know, I know. Please stop saying that.”

Bucky obediently stops saying anything, which is probably good timing, because Toni takes as deep a breath as she can. “Alright. See you on the flip side.” With that, she walks around the divider into the main lobby, where the press have already gathered, and someone has managed to set up a podium for her.

There are cards on the podium, Bucky notices as he steps up to get a good view of the crowd while still being out of the way. Toni ignores the cards, though, just starts laying out the facts.

“—And our investigation is ongoing. We’ll of course keep you updated.”

The press seems to lose it, hands going up, questions being shouted. Toni moves her head slightly to sweep the whole crowd, before pointing at someone. “Yeah, Jackson.”

“Ms. Stark, does this mean arc reactor technology is dangerous and shouldn’t be used?”

Bucky’s not at an angle to see it, but he can hear the way Toni’s smile tightens in her voice. “As I said, our investigation is ongoing. It is way too early to tell what caused this. We’ll let you know when we know.”

“And what are you doing to figure out what caused this?” Another voice calls.

“I’m on my way to Utah. Pepper Potts is already there. We’re ready for an open, public, and diligent investigation.”

“Would you advocate for other arc reactors to be shut down, during this time?”

“Arc reactors don’t shut down,” Toni says promptly. “That’s the point. They’re reactors. The reaction will continue no matter what. Now, we can stop using them to power things, but I don’t currently see it as necessary, or even helpful. Mathematically, what happened to this arc reactor should not be possible. It’s an efficient energy operation. Which is why we need an investigation.”

“Ms. Stark, is that really wise? In a city of eight million people, an arc reactor in midtown Manhattan just sounds too dangerous to leave running right now.”

Bucky’s fist clenches. Toni  _ just explained _ , and here they won’t listen to her. The savior of the whole damn word.

Toni’s back tightens, but it’s the only sign this is getting to her. “As I said. There is no danger. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get to Utah.”

They’re shouting at her, and cameras are flashing. Bucky walks out to her, deliberately a little menacing looking, and wraps her into his side, shielding her as best he can as he gets her back upstairs.

Once they’re packed—and it really didn’t take them longer than five minutes, with an additional five minutes for Toni to get that Peter kid to agree to come by after school and check on Alpine—Toni drives them to the airstrip where a small plane awaits.

He raises an eyebrow. “You flying this?”

“Of course,” she says, grinning. “Get us there safe and sound, don’t you worry.”

When they land, they’re taken directly to the site.

It’s basically a smoldering crater, rubble everywhere. “What were they working on here?” Bucky asks, looking around.

“Medical technology, for the most part,” Toni says, her eyes narrowed, her face pinched. “The arc reactor kept production clean. I… remember what I told you?”

“About someone misusing the arc reactor? Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she says. “ _ Nothing _ I know says an arc reactor functioning normally would be able to do this. Nothing.”

“Who would know how to do this?”

“I know one guy,” Toni muses. “But he’s dead.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very,” she replies, flexing her gauntleted hand, and that leads to another point.

“You can...your arc reactor shoots. I know. I…”

“Got your arm shot off, yeah. I remember.” She shakes her head. “It’s not the reactor doing the shooting. It’s powering the gauntlets. Even when it does something violent, it’s just the power source.”

“The one in your Los Angeles factory…when— ”

She’s already shaking her head. “That’s Dad’s version. The original. Flawed. It wasn’t a clean reaction. Add too much—like Pepper did—and it goes boom. This arc reactor won’t do that. Can’t. And even if it were still possible, it’s not like you plug something into an outlet that can’t support the voltage. It’s way, way more intense than that. And not something that can happen by accident, anyways.”

They’re silent for a minute, looking at the destruction. “So. We’re looking for sabotage?”

Toni sighs. “Yup.”

Toni pulls pieces of the suit together before venturing into the rubble, so Bucky has to give her points for self preservation. Not too many, though.

“Let me go in. You stay here.”

She raises one scarred eyebrow. “So, you know what to look for?”

He figures  _ follow the destruction,  _ a tried and true method of his, won’t fly with her. “I can wear a camera.”

“You might miss something, ‘cause you don’t know what to look for,” she dismisses. “Besides, in the suit, I could survive a building collapse better than you.”

So they descend into what’s left of the building. “Reactor core is this way,” Toni says. Her voice comes out robotic through the helmet. “FRIDAY, baby, you there?”

“Always, Boss.” It comes out of Iron Man’s speakers, tinny and too loud in the echoey space.

“Oh, I forgot,” Toni says, extending her hand to Bucky. An earbud. He puts it in quickly. “Top of the line, so no matter what happens out here, we shouldn’t lose contact.”

Well, that’s a relief. The suit illuminates tiny little lights, all along Toni’s arms, her torso, even one by her ear, as they go deeper into the mess.

Careful not to shift the rubble unnecessarily, they make it through remnants of the building, down to the arc reactor core.

Bucky looks around. While there’s a massive crater in the middle of the building, down to the damaged arc reactor, large parts of the building remain standing. Some of it is offices, some of it looks like a factory floor, some of it a warehouse.

Toni moves on with a single-minded purpose, working her way down the levels, until they’re on the floor with the arc reactor. “This floor is secured,” she says. “Authorized personnel only. I still do most arc reactor maintenance. There are a few arc reactor techs right now, but I’m a control freak.”

Bucky watches her metal hand on the rail near the reactor, watches the way she keeps turning her head, eyes taking in the damage. He tries to lay a hand on her shoulder, and she does relax into it slightly, even through all the metal of the suit.

Then she shrugs him off and studies the reactor. “This isn’t…” She shakes her head. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Was someone down here who shouldn’t be?”

“We don’t know yet. But, look…look at the damage to the reactor.” She frowns. “I want to get to its core.”

Without waiting for him to say anything, she lightly hops the rail, using the repulsors gently to guide her fall onto the ground under the reactor.

Bucky goes to the edge, but by then she’s almost entirely out of sight, obscured by the giant reactor. Scanning quickly, he locates a ladder and follows her down, skipping the last half dozen rungs to get to her quicker.

She’s half up inside the reactor by the time he makes it there. “Don’t need this anymore,” she mumbles, but the new earbud picks it up clear as day. Sure enough, a piece of the machine clangs to the floor.

“Here we go.” She emerges, holding a chunk of mildly corroded metal, about the size of her own fist. “Palladium. Not advised for human bodies, but works great in machines. And what I was worried about.”

“What’s wrong with it?” He asks.

“Nothing. That’s the problem. This is exactly what I’d expect a palladium core in an arc reactor eighteen months to look like. And I know it’s only been here eighteen months because I changed it myself. We’ll have the maintenance logs and everything.”

“So…” Bucky prompts. Her brain works so much faster than his, than everyone else’s he’s ever met. She’s clearly already come to her conclusion. He just can’t keep up.

“A reactor blows, the core goes with it. Think of it…think of it like a candle. A normal, controlled flame burns down the wick and the wax at a reasonable, predictable rate. You suddenly triple the size of the flame?”

“Burns out faster than you’d expect,” he says, beginning to get the picture.

“Yeah. Overload a reactor, like we did in LA, you’ll know it. Only, here, the wick—“ she holds out the core— “is essentially fine. But the wax is melted. This isn’t an internal problem. This is a candle sitting in a house fire.”

“So, we’re looking at sabotage,” he says again.

“So, we’re looking at sabotage,” she agrees. “Anything in this room look like you wouldn’t expect?”

Bucky takes his eyes off of her to look around, forces himself into the mindset that might be useful to her right now. “Those are scorch marks,” he points out. “Thought they were from this thing blowing, but now…”

“Yeah,” she finishes, bending over the spot. “FRIDAY, you getting this?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Good. I’m gonna take a sample of this. Then, we’re out of this hellhole.”

Getting back out isn’t hard, and Toni removes the suit as soon as they’re out.

Pepper finds them, not even sparing a glance for Bucky before focusing on Toni. “What do you know?”

Toni checks for listeners, moving her head all the way around to check all sides. She doesn’t have to; like Bucky would ever let anyone get too close. Still, if it makes her feel better. “Not the reactor core,” Toni says quietly. “But that doesn’t leave this circle until I know more.”

“What do you mean, not the reactor?”

“You’ll know when I know, Pep,” Toni promises. “Look. I flew most of the way across the country today. I’m gonna crash, and then figure out what I can figure out.”

“What do you want me to release?”

“That our investigation is ongoing.”

“They’re not going to like that.”

Toni sighs. “I know, Pep. But it’s what I have right now.”

Pepper’s look softens. “Sorry, I—sorry. Things are a little crazy right now.”

“You’re telling me. You staying out here?”

“Same hotel as you.”

“Wasn’t aware we had a hotel,” Toni says, and she even manages a bit of a smile. Pepper hands Toni two room keys, and Toni takes them, even as she shakes her head. “You do remember not being my assistant, right?”

“Yes, well. If I left it up to you, you’d never remember to check in. Or go eat.”

Toni smiles a little wider. “That’s what I have Bucky here for,” she says. “He reminds me of stuff like that.”

Pepper and Toni wrap up their conversation, but Bucky can’t help his own little smile.

Bucky raises an eyebrow, looking around the hotel room.

Toni seems very blasé about it, and Bucky supposes she probably has stayed in fancier places, the really outrageous places for the super wealthy. But the three-room suite with a full dining table and grand piano really is a bit much.

“Is this what it’s always like?”

Toni looks around, done setting the case of technology she flew all the way across the country across that fancy dining table. “This is nothing. I’ll take you somewhere really crazy, someday.”

“Who the hell would need more than this?”

Toni doesn’t answer, just walks over to him, twines her arms around his neck. “You know what’s nice? Even rich people hotel rooms have a bedroom.”

And Bucky doesn’t really need a hint beyond that.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot against Toni and SI thickens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter. A few notes before we get to the warnings.
> 
> I need a week off. Massachusetts just got the order to move school to online learning for the rest of the year, and I need to work with my team on what that will look like. Plus, the last chapter is a pain in the ass that I've re-written three times, and it's still not anywhere near done. So I need the time to handle both those things properly. Therefore, I'll start posting again next Thursday, the 30th.
> 
> With that said, back to the chapter.
> 
> Warning for a sex scene (oral). It starts with Bucky offering Toni a distraction and goes to the end of that section, should you wish to skip.
> 
> Warnings for violence and injury. Both of our main characters get injured here, although I promise they both live (it's comic book science anyways).
> 
> We get to see some of Extremis in action, but I've tied in the comic book technology connection that the movies didn't necessarily have. It feels right (I'd already done this, it's just a little clearer here). Needless to say, all science is 100% pure unadulterated bullshit.
> 
> Okay, I think that's all. I hope you enjoy, sorry about the upcoming delay, I'll see you all soon.

“What’s wrong, Doll?” Bucky asks the next morning, when he steps out of the shower only to find Toni on the couch, looking pensively into the distance.

She holds up her tablet. “They’re asking about shutting reactors down still.”

Bucky sits down next to her. “And you told ‘em it didn’t make sense.”

“But what if it does?” She asks. “I mean, it  _ is _ possible. Just pull the cores. And palladium is valuable enough that that could become its own risk, but we could do containment. I just…these were meant to  _ help _ the world. I took the thing that kept me alive and I turned it into something actually useful.” She taps the center of her chest twice, for emphasis.

Bucky wants to argue that  _ thing that kept her alive _ made the arc reactor plenty useful on its own, but he knows it’s not what she wants to hear, right then. “Why shut them down? You were right; the arc reactor isn’t causing the damage.”

“Does it really matter, though? If it’s my fault or not? If someone is blowing them up, then they’re dangerous. Maybe I’ve just put a big target on places, and then it will be my fault, regardless.”

“If you remove the cores, they can still plant bombs,” Bucky says, but even his reasoned argument doesn’t ease Toni’s miserable expression. “Say, hypothetically, you did decide to pull the cores. What’s the downside?”

“No more energy,” she says promptly. “There’s reactors everywhere. They power the Tower, sure, and SI’s factories and offices. But they also bring power to places that wouldn’t necessarily get power. I’ve got entire cities running on it, in certain parts of the world. And that’s people in the dark. Hospitals, schools, businesses.”

Not an ideal solution, then. Bucky reaches out for her, rubs her shoulders. “We’re going to fix this, Toni.”

She sighs. “I know. I’m just…if they could plant a bomb in my facility…most reactors are protected, but not impenetrable.”

He keeps rubbing at her shoulders. “Pepper isn’t meeting us at the site for another hour,” he notes. “Want me to take your mind off of it? Distract you a bit?”

She gives him a look, only partially twisting her neck to fully look at him. “What’d you have in mind?”

Instead of answering, Bucky goes to his knees on the carpet in front of the couch. He pushes up the skirt she’s wearing for the press conference Pepper scheduled, pushes it up until she gets with the program and lifts her hips so he can ruck it up to her waist, out of his way.

He likes the blue panties almost as much as he liked the red ones, that first time, he thinks.

To show his appreciation, he works her legs over his shoulders, then begins to suck at her, nip and tease, through the satiny fabric, until she’s squirming, until she’s worked a hand into his hair, until she’s pressing at his back with her still-heel-clad foot.

Bucky would feel bad for tearing such lovely panties, but he’s quickly reminded that the real art is underneath the wrapping. Leaving the ripped fabric around her hips, Bucky takes her gasp when he rips them and turns it into a full-on moan when his tongue finds her clit.

He looks up, only to find her head thrown back, her still-clothed chest pressed outward, heaving slightly. He turns his attention fully back to the task at hand, licking a few broad stripes before coming back to her clit.

When she’s panting his name, squeezing his hair rhythmically, he pushes inside of her with one metal finger.

_ That _ generates quite the reaction, a series of moans that just seem to build with intensity, her grinding her hips against his face, her grabbing his hair and  _ tugging _ . Bucky leans into it, feeling himself grow fully hard as she clearly enjoys what he can offer.

A flick of his button with his flesh hand and a quick move has his cock out, in hand, and he strokes in time with his thrusts into her.

Soon one finger becomes two, and after a moment he seems to have them angled just right. It’s enough to have her moaning his name as she grinds her hips down against his face, at any rate.

“Fuck, Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky, right there…Bucky, oh my god, I—“

What exactly she planned—or didn’t plan, more likely—to say next is lost as she groans, which turns quickly to breathy pants as she contracts around his fingers, the solid, unyielding nature of the metal wrapped in tight, rippling flesh.

When her breaths evens out again, Bucky pulls his fingers out of her—which causes her head to fall back against the back of the couch once again—and takes his hand off of his cock, helping her get her legs off his shoulders.

She sits on the couch, panties in tatters, skirt around her waist, legs splayed obscenely, cunt glinting at him, and he can’t help but stare. Even with his face still damp with her, he can’t help it; his mouth gets wet, and he wants to dive in all over again.

When he forces himself to look up at her face, her eyes are hooded, and her crooked smirk wicked. “You gonna finish what you started?”

He allows his hand to drop back to his cock, touching gently at first, teasingly light. “You wanna watch?”

Toni licks her lower lip. “Yeah.”

Who is Bucky to say no to that?

It takes Toni about thirty seconds to slide onto the floor with him, her flesh hand, so delicate and small compared to his, but just as rough, cupping his balls before sliding up to play with the base of his cock.

“ _ Jesus Christ, Doll _ ,” Bucky mutters, eyes rolling back. “Doll-face, Toni, I—“

“Yeah, Honey?” She says, in that low, soothing, sensual voice that makes shivers wrack down his spine. “You like this?”

Bucky forces himself to look at her, watch her hand on him, watch her eye watch him. He wants to roll her onto her back, wants to start this whole process over again, wants to open up her shirt and her thighs slowly, softly, and feel those heels digging into his ass, wants…

But this is Toni’s show, and Bucky is an enthusiastic player in her show. Always.

He’s getting closer, teetering on that edge. But then Toni leans closer, kisses him, hard and messy, and that’s it. He can’t hold on any longer, and Toni’s name is only muffled by her lips on his.

Her crisp blue blouse is painted with come, he realizes, white streaks immediately, horrifically obvious against the soft fabric.

Toni looks down too, sees the mess, but she just smiles, soft and crooked and so achingly sweet Bucky can’t help but kiss her again.

“I’m gonna change,” she says, but she hesitates a minute, before leaning in to kiss her again. “Thanks for the distraction, Honey.”

And Bucky feels it, the warm, soft glow in his stomach, as he watches her walk away.

Once they’re both cleaned up, they head over to the press conference. Toni’s job is mostly to stand in the back today, be there and be ready to answer any technical questions Pepper might not be prepared to answer. 

Pepper fields most of them, including holding to the company line that there seems to be no reason to shut arc reactors down at this time. Toni goes tense at that, although Bucky thinks he might be the only one who’s noticed.

Someone sticks their hand up, and Pepper calls them. “What do you say to the allegations by Mr. Quentin Beck that this is a design flaw, and he’s worked out how to solve it?”

Toni’s head snaps in the reporter’s direction, and Bucky feels something tense inside him. 

“I haven’t heard those allegations,” Pepper says, brushing off the reporter. “It doesn’t sound plausible, given the early stages of our investigation.”

“What does that mean?” A reporter calls, but Toni’s already turned away, walking off the makeshift stage.

“FRIDAY, compile everything you can on Quentin Beck,” Toni mutters into her phone as Bucky approaches her.

Toni reads the details on her phone, lightning quick, and Bucky takes up a protective position, watching her back for intruders. 

“FRI, I want everything on his SI service record, now,” Toni murmurs, and seems to get what she wants, considering her rapidly flickering eye, going through the data.

“Are you even reading that?” He asks.

Toni breaks away long enough to look up at him, manages a small smile, before turning back to her task. 

When she’s done, she slips her phone away and looks up at him. “Well, we’ve got a problem.”

“Who is he?”   


“Former employee. I fired him. I mean, I personally didn’t. Never met him. But, he had some…interesting ideas about B—about some of our technology. Weaponizing it, mostly. And that’s a big no-no at SI. So, he was let go. And…” She shakes her head. “He technically maybe could know something about arc reactor technology. It’s not impossible, and he would have worked around one. But he wasn’t a trained tech. I know. I handpick those.”

“So he’s a liar,” Bucky surmises. “Is he also our bomber?”   


Toni’s expression is grim as she turns back to the still-ongoing press conference. “Only one way to find out.”

And, before Bucky can ask what she means, she’s walking back over to the press conference, Bucky desperately tagging along at her heels. 

There must be something on Toni’s face, because Pepper clears out of her way. “Thanks, Pep,” she says softly, before turning all her attention to the reporter, heedless of the question they might have been in the middle of. “Got a message for Mr. Beck,” she says succinctly. “I’d like to meet him. Let’s say, LA. Tomorrow? SI offices? I want to hear this solution of his.”

And, ignoring all the questions shouted after her, Toni walks off, Bucky following her.

Once they’re on the plane and in the air, Bucky turns to Toni. “Why LA?”

“Close to here.”

Bucky takes a deep breath, rephrases his question. “Why the SI offices? Isn’t that…dangerous?”   


“Have you met me?” Toni snarks. “I like having fights on my home turf.”   


Bucky keeps his mouth shut against saying that it’s been a mediocre strategy at best for her. That she’s won as much as she’s lost, that her Malibu home rests at the bottom of the ocean now, because of this. 

Toni waits a moment, pretends to focus intensely on the instrumentation panel. “I don’t know,” she says. “But I know the place. I can secure it. I’m already tapped into the network, there. It gives me every advantage I can get.”

Bucky feels a weird, prickling feeling on the back of his neck, a feeling he became familiar with enough back in the war.

Still, he doesn’t really know what to do with it. It’s not like he and Toni don’t both know this is a dangerous situation without him repeating it.

He sighs, watches Toni fly, and resolves to keep a careful eye on her.

Toni has a team doing security at the site. Bucky’s torn, half wanting to be there and half knowing he can’t—won’t—leave Toni’s side. 

Even when she’s safely—or safely enough, anyways—ensconced in the hotel, Bucky can’t calm down. He’s pacing in front of the big picture windows, scanning the view outside the window. He hates the windows, even if he knows they’re higher up than pretty much any surrounding building.

A competent sniper can get off a shot.  _ Bucky _ could get off a shot.

Heedless of the danger of the window, Toni comes up behind him, wraps her arms around his shoulders, leaning up on her toes to rest most of her weight on him. “Come relax with me.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I can’t. I—Toni—something about this isn’t right.”

She sighs, and Bucky feels the breath against his back. “I know. You don’t think I know? Everything about this is wrong, Bucky. Beck is bad news, and his story is horseshit. But I have to get to the bottom of it. And the best way to do that is to have him walk into my building tomorrow.”

“I know, I know,” Bucky murmurs. And he does. He knows Toni is good and determined and will take down injustice. And someone taking advantage of her company is dead in the water, no questions asked. “But I gotta—I’m worried.”

“I know,” she says softly. “Look, you distracted me earlier. I’m returning the favor. Come—come take a bath with me.”

Bucky gives one more look out the window, then follows her into the next room.

The next morning, they’re supposed to meet Beck at the Stark building at noon. Toni wants to get there early— “it’s my turf and I’m happy to remind him of that,” she says—so she’s up not too long after first light, getting ready.

Bucky dresses quickly, slips two guns and two knives onto him. Once he’s in the suite’s living room, two doors closed between him and Toni, he closes his eyes, debating with himself. 

“FRIDAY?”

The voice is tinny from his phone, but undeniably there. “Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”

“I need you to call Steve for me.”

FRIDAY doesn’t say anything else, but the line starts ringing.

“Hello?”

Bucky swallows. “Steve? I think we need your help.”

The line is silent for a moment, but then Steve starts talking again, almost tripping over his words, like he needs to assure Bucky. “Anything, Buck. You know what. Where—are you in LA?”

He’s seen the news, then. Well, that makes things easier; means Bucky has less to do to catch him up. “Yeah. How fast can you guys get here?”

They arrive at SI before ten, and Bucky does a sweep of the place, Toni walking alongside him. 

“Security’s been here all night,” Toni says softly, although she’s just as dedicated to the sweep as he is.

For his part, Bucky doesn’t care how long security has been present. He’s been the guy to get past security, and Beck is no Winter Soldier, is just some scientist with a grudge, but Bucky hasn’t survived as long as he has without being cautious.

He has to admit, though, that he doesn’t see anything. The arc reactor here isn’t underground—what with Los Angeles’ issue with earthquakes—but it is in its own concrete bunker, and Bucky can’t find any signs that it’s been disturbed.

That doesn’t mean that Beck won’t walk in the front door, bringing in problems with him. But if he does, then Bucky will be right over Toni’s shoulder, waiting for him.

Toni frowns, and walks into the reactor room. “Be out in a minute,” she murmurs to Bucky. “Gonna get…a little freaky with our tech, here.”

Bucky frowns, almost insists on following her, but her eye starts glowing blue, and he contents himself with waiting outside the door.

It’s disconcerting. Bucky remembers what she said about Extremis well enough—that it links her to the technology of the suit, that it could’ve given her unparalleled physical and technological abilities if it wasn’t so busy fighting off the stones—and he worries what it means that she’s using it now.

He doesn’t ask, though, not even when she steps out, looking a little worn down but otherwise still as determined as ever.

At noon, they meet Beck in the lobby. Toni even shakes the guy’s hand. “Thanks for coming in today.”

The man has a charming smile, Bucky’ll give him that. It’s just the right amount of bashful, and, somehow, it makes Bucky trust him even less. “Of course. I…I just want to help people.”

Toni’s smile doesn’t even falter, but Bucky can see the tensing around her eyes. “Let’s go to my office.”

The real trick of this place is that, despite the fact that Toni is never here, she still has a swanky office near the R&D levels. Bucky stands by the door, as intimidating as he possibly can be, while Toni sits behind the desk and folds her hands, metal and flesh on display. She levels Beck, in a clearly less comfortable guest chair, with a look. “Tell me about this design flaw.”

So Beck starts to babble in techno-speak, a close enough facsimile to what Toni does when she comes up from the lab that Bucky wouldn’t notice any difference if he weren’t watching Toni. But he is watching Toni, who is playing with a little screwdriver, and watching Beck closely. Finally, she interrupts him mid-sentence. “Don’t waste anymore of my time, Beck. Let’s cut to the chase.”

“What do you mean?”

Toni raises her scarred eyebrow. “You know you planted bombs in Utah. I know you planted bombs in Utah.”

Beck leans back in his chair, a good amount of the facade dropping away. “Well, not me. I have a team.”

“Congratulations,” Toni says dryly.

“A team of people who want payback. From you.”

Toni snorts, gestures with her metal hand, making a hologram of Beck’s SI file appear. “You took health technology and tried to weaponize it. At a company historically not friendly towards weapons designs.”

“Historically, very friendly to weapons designs,” he shoots back. “I can’t help if your vision is short-sighted, Toni.”

Bucky bristles at the use of her name. Like he  _ gets _ that familiarity, like he’s earned it.

“And it works. Modifying BARF to have applications beyond your little pet project is what allowed me to do all this.”

“Really?” Toni tilts her head. “Do tell.” It’s sarcastic, but Bucky knows she’s interested, despite herself.

“It’s simple. Anything I can dream of, with the right technology, can be made real. Or, real enough. Like an empty room. An untouched arc reactor…”

“Mhm,” Toni nods. “And what’s the master plan?”

“What, making you look bad wasn’t enough?”

“Not for someone like you. I know your type.”

Beck looks her over in a way that makes Bucky want to grab his gun. Just when he’s thinking that that might not be a bad idea, Beck speaks up. “My team went after the reactor in Wisconsin last night.”

Toni raises an eyebrow. “Wow, congratulations. You guys get around.”

“We placed eleven bombs on site.”

“And wired them into the electrical panels. So it looks like the power output from the reactor causes the explosion. I know.”

_ That _ stops both Bucky and Beck in their tracks for a moment. “How do you know?”

“I know my tech,” Toni says, but Bucky sees the flash of blue in her eyes, can see her pushing at Extremis. “So here’s my question, Beck. Why? What is your goal?”

Beck leans forward, and Toni’s desk is big, there’s still plenty of space between them, but Bucky wants to shoot him for  _ daring _ to be close to Toni.

“I want what should have been mine in the first place,” he says. “Respect.”

“And you think bombs get you respect. Typical.”

He shrugs. “It worked for Starks for, what, seventy years? Don’t see why it can’t work for me. But here’s what’s going to happen. The bomb in Wisconsin is going to explode. Unfortunate accident. And then you’ll come out and credit me with solving the arc reactor. Admit you can’t fix it yourself, that your design got people killed.”

“No one’s died yet,” she says softly.

“Don’t be naive, Toni,” he says. “Casualties happen. Isn’t that what Starks say? Isn’t that what Avengers say?”

Toni flinches, and Bucky’s done with this. Maybe shooting this idiot will stop the bombing, maybe it won’t. But it’ll certainly make him stop hurting Toni, and that’s all that counts. 

“Tell your guard dog to put his gun away.” Beck doesn’t even have the decency to sound scared. “My team has four more targets ready to go if I don’t check in.”

Toni briefly inclines her head, frown getting more severe. “Bucky, don’t shoot him. Besides, your aim is off. Try closer to the window.”

There's no one there, but Toni is rarely ever wrong, so Bucky swings his gun around. 

The Beck in the chair disappears, and one by the window appears as if from thin air. “How’d you know?”

“I  _ invented _ BARF. Your suped-up projection tech isn’t that different,” she says.

He frowns. “No one can spot me.  _ No one _ .”

Toni shrugs. “Maybe I’m just better than you.”

Beck’s frown gives way to a cocky smirk, and Bucky, still with a leveled gun, wishes Toni would lift her request not to kill the smug bastard. “Not so much better that you know how to stop me, though. So, Toni, what do you say?”

She pushes herself to her feet, and Bucky nearly drops his gun in horror. It’s immediately obvious her scars are worse, deeper, like someone went after them with a knife. Some of them are even  _ glowing _ . “I say that you, like an idiot, walked into my building with your cellphone. I say I’ve been distracting you like the idiot you are while my tech and my brain work their way into your network. You were fucked the moment you showed up on my turf, buddy. Your whole network is infected now.”

She smiles. It’s even more lopsided, there’s a new scar through her lip, and her mouth is bleeding slightly. Bucky feels like he’s nailed to the floor.

“You lose,” Toni says softly, and then, like her strings were cut, she collapses back into the chair. 

Beck watches her, his expression not knowing enough to be properly horrified. “What the fuck is this?” He walks away from the window, approaching Toni, slumped at her desk, like some sort of scientific curiosity.

Bucky inserts himself between the two, gun drawn and on Beck, steady. If Bucky were a normal person, his hand would shake, seeing Toni like that. 

But he’s not. He’s the Winter Soldier, and that part of him is what’s useful to Toni right now. “Don’t step any closer.”

Toni groans from her desk. “I’m alright, Honey. Don’t kill him, please. I need to figure out what else he knows.”

She’s never looked less alright in all the time Bucky’s known her. Bucky doesn’t drop the gun. “Don’t step any closer,” he repeats.

“Go ahead,” Beck taunts. “Shoot me.  _ Toni Stark’s boy toy shoots innovator _ . Go ahead.”

Bucky’s hand tightens on his gun. “Think Toni has plenty of proof about what kind of scum you are.”

Beck stops, pretending to consider it. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Here’s the thing, though. You missed one.”

Bucky feels his heart rate slow, his eyes narrow until the only thing in the world is this asshole, moving his coat.

“Not on a network,” he says smugly. “Dead man’s switch. You shoot me, I let go, this goes off.”

“What’s your game now, Beck?” Toni asks, and Bucky desperately wants to turn to her, to check in on her, but he can’t take his gun, his eye, off of Beck. “What do you think this will get you?”

“An exploded Toni Stark sounds pretty good to me,” he says. “Without you, what proof is there of anything? My guys will move onto the next location. Arc reactors explode, and look, I have the solution.”

“You’ll be dead,” Bucky points out. There is no way Beck will survive that bomb blast. Not at that close of a range.

“I’m willing to die to take down Stark.”

Toni laughs, broken and harsh. “You could’ve just left a bad review on Indeed, you know that?” She coughs a bit, and part of Bucky breaks, unable to turn to her, too focused on keeping his shot steady. “I published all this to the internet. It won’t work.”

_ Something _ crosses Beck’s face, something ugly and brutal, and he takes a step forward. “You  _ bitch _ —”

Bucky moves before he thinks, tosses his gun aside—worthless here, with the bomb—and dives for Beck, grabbing him around the legs, carefully avoiding the bomb, and brings him crashing through the big windows of Toni’s office.

Beck screams on the way down, which is longer than it has any right to be. Bucky spares a moment, wondering if this is where his good luck runs out, but then focuses on Toni, knows it’s worth it, either way.

If he hits bottom and doesn’t wake up this time, then he died for Toni. And that’s good enough.

“--Bucky?  _ Bucky _ !” 

Bucky opens his eyes to the noise, to  _ Toni _ , because he’ll always come back for Toni. Everything is out of focus, but he follows the sound of her voice, turning his head to look at the blurry, red-and-gold blob capped with brown curls.

“Bucky?”

“‘M here,” he manages. “‘M here, Doll.”   


Toni lets out a shaky, shaky sigh. “Why’d you do that, huh? Why’d you do that, Honey?”

“Always, for you, Doll,” he says. His eyes are slipping closed again. Toni grabs his hand, and her hand is shaking in his. Bucky tries to give her hand a squeeze, tries to reassure her, but he’s not sure if he succeeds.

He can’t force his eyes back open. Some deep sense of calm comes over him, with Toni’s hand in his. “Always for you,” he says again. “‘S my job.”


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shit hits the fan. Things come to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all, I'm back!
> 
> And while I'm not necessarily on better footing for work (how can I always feel like I'm behind, seriously), the extra time did allow me to get this fic 100% finished, so that's nice.
> 
> This chapter is a lot. Let's start with the warnings: both Bucky and Toni have been seriously injured, although there's no graphic discussion (Bucky mentions Toni got stitches, I guess). They discuss what Bucky did, and Toni is not happy about it.
> 
> This is important, and also a bit spoilery: When Toni is learning just how deep Bucky's need to take care of her go, she comes to some conclusions, including questioning how well Bucky can truly consent to anything having to do with her. She uses the word rape.
> 
> I, as the author, am not saying what went down between them was awful and rape. However, I will side with Toni here and say there should be some questions about Bucky's ability to consent properly.
> 
> One last thing: The other Avengers appear here, and they don't love Toni. However! Bucky is a super unreliable narrator. If I was writing this on a omniscient point of view, I would say that the Avengers maybe don't love Toni, but they have (very easily) mischaracterized her relationship with Bucky. In assuming that she hurt Bucky, they react a certain way in how they discuss her with him. Bucky very much does not like what they have to say, but they're not villains. In fact, they're (for the most part) friends trying to show their friend that they'll survive without an unhealthy relationship.
> 
> That's a lot, and I hope that covers things. I hope you all enjoy! Posting schedule is back to Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, so this will be done in a week.

Bucky wakes up with a deep throbbing in most of his body and a hole in his memory.

Holes in his memory are always disturbing, given his history. He remembers…his brow furrows, trying to piece through it. He remembers a bath with Toni, remembers her body against his, wet and warm and mostly relaxed, her damp hair tickling against his chest.

And then…and then the next morning came, and they went to SI. Because they were meeting with Beck. Who…

Oh. Bucky remembers now. He forces his eyes open, tries to sit up.

“Whoa, Buck! Settle down!”

_ Steve _ . That’s Steve, and if Steve is here, that means Toni  _ isn’t _ , which means all Bucky can do is fight harder.

“Bucky!  _ Stop moving _ .”

Steve’s strong, definitely stronger than Bucky right now, which isn’t a good sign. His arms feel like steel bands, holding Bucky to the bed. 

Losing the fight, Bucky settles down, but forces his eyes open to look up into Steve’s earnest blue eyes. “Where’s Toni?”

Steve blinks. “She’s fine. You’re—”

“She’s not  _ fine _ , she used fuckin’ Extremis and if she were fine, she’d be here,” he snarls. “Where. Is. She?”   


“She’s two rooms down,” Steve says. Bucky notices that Steve’s hands haven’t left his biceps. Part of Bucky thinks he could fight past Steve, even weakened as he is. But it’s probably more efficient to get information from Steve. “What the hell happened, Buck?”   


“I took care of the problem.”

“You  _ called us for a reason _ , lunkhead,” Steve says, and Bucky honestly thinks that, if they weren’t in such dire straits, Steve would hit him upside the head.

“Leave the man be, Steve. He fell forty stories today.”

Bucky turns his head to see the assassin, the Widow—Natasha, Natalia, whomever. She smirks at him. “Going to be alright?”

“I bounce,” he says shortly. “I’m fine now.”   


Not strictly true, maybe. He feels sluggish still, although for all he knows that could be drugs they gave him here in the hospital. He definitely aches, but it doesn’t feel like anything is still seriously broken. “I need to get to Toni.”

Natasha sits in the chair by his bedside, and some part of Bucky bristles. That’s not her seat. “Easy there, Cowboy. Listen: Potts and Rhodes are waiting for Toni. She’s not up for visitors yet.”

Bucky snarls. “Who said anything about  _ visitors _ ? I’m not here to _ visit _ , I’m not here for her autograph or whatever. I’m here ‘cause it’s my job, to look after her.”

Steve and Natasha give each other a look. “I thought you said it wasn’t about owing, Buck.”

How can Bucky explain to someone like  _ Steve _ that it’s not about owing, that it’s so much deeper than that? That he loves her, his heart, soul, whole being, that he’s so happy to be whatever she needs?

Bucky pushes himself upright again, scrambling at the equipment they’ve hooked him to. “I’m going to go see her. Right now.”

“Buck, wait—” Steve gets in his way, hands spread in front of him, a gesture to indicate he means no harm when that is obviously far from the truth. 

But Steve is just the ploy, meant to distract him. “Night-night, Soldier,” Natasha whispers from behind him, then hits him in the neck with a syringe.

When he wakes up, just as fuzzy as the last time, the room is dark—or, at least, as dark as a hospital ever seemingly gets. He’s alone, but that won’t last forever. Maybe they kicked Steve and Natasha out for the night, but a nurse will come through at some point.

So Bucky starts pulling out wires and needles, careful not to do more damage to himself than necessary. 

He climbs out of bed. They have him in a stupid hospital gown, but Bucky’s not going to be picky. Not when Toni is god knows where.

He closes his eyes for the briefest second. Toni didn’t look good, last he saw her. Extremis might’ve been the key to taking down Beck, but it  _ wrecked _ her. What did she say to him, when she explained it?

_ “I could interface with my systems on a level not at all human. Like the suit nanites and me. But I can’t use it like that. It’s wasted on fighting the stones.” _

Bucky never considered it a waste, the revolutionary technology keeping her alive. But here Toni is, using it as a weapon, taking it away from its defensive purposes.

He takes a deep breath to steady himself. Once he’s assured himself she’s okay, put himself in a position to watch over her, he’ll remind her exactly what his job is.

She’s not the one who gets hurt. Not anymore. Not ever again.

The hallway isn’t empty, but they have the lights down low, and Bucky is still the Winter Soldier, even in a flimsy polka-dotted hospital gown. He sneaks past the nurse, likely distracted by her rounds and other patients, and goes off to find Toni.

It’s not hard, at the end of the day. Toni’s in a private room, the curtain drawn over the door, but  _ A. Stark _ is on the little whiteboard outside, so Bucky quickly pushes back the curtain, then makes sure it settles into place again so they won’t be disturbed.

Toni’s awake, and on her phone. “Doll, you need to sleep,” he says softly, stepping closer.

Toni just about drops the phone in shock, but manages to fumble it, looking over at him. The soft glow of the phone is harsh on her features. The new wounds, the deepened scars, he remembers from her office, stand out in stark relief against her face.

They’ve stitched them up when needed, applied little butterfly bandages where they could, and Bucky sees bandages poking out from the neck of her hospital gown. 

“Bucky!” She says. Her voice is a little raw, but not as bad as Bucky might expect, after having witnessed a few of her screaming nightmares. “What’re you doing here?”   


“I’m fine,” he says, moving to the chair by her bed.

She raises an eyebrow, then winces. “Your new clothes a fashion statement, then? Or are you just showing your support?”

“I’m fine, Doll, promise,” he says, reaching for her hand. “Look, they’re just being cautious.”

“You fell  _ forty stories _ ,” she hisses. “If you didn’t land on Beck, you would be dead. Completely, absolutely, no question. Bucky, you—you—”

Bucky takes that hand and kisses it. “I’m fine, Doll. Look, I survive these things, okay? And even if I didn't—”

“Even if you didn’t?” Toni cuts across him, furious enough for red spots to rise to her face. “Even if you  _ didn’t _ ? Bucky, this is your life we’re talking about, and—”

“And I’d happily die. For you,” Bucky says firmly. “You know that, Toni. It’s my—”

“Do not say it’s your job. Do not.”

“It is, though. I’m not—you have to understand that, Toni. I’ll do whatever it takes to take care of you.”

She flinches back almost violently, pulling her hand from his. “Bucky, I—” She shakes her head. “You can’t think like that.”

“Toni,” he says, reaching for her hand again, but she pulls it back further. “Toni, c’mon. I’m sorry I scared you. I…I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No,” she agrees. “You just meant to  _ die _ for me.”

Bucky opens his mouth, then closes it. “I’m willing to die for you. If it’s needed.”   


“It’s never needed!” Her voice is getting a little louder, and Bucky would be worried about a nurse coming in. Then again, this is Toni Stark. People don’t bother her if she doesn’t want them to. “There were…there were other ways to handle that. And even if there weren’t…Bucky, it’s not your job to die for me.” Before Bucky can even open his mouth to disagree, she’s continuing, steam-rolling right over him. “You called the Avengers.”   


Realizing she’s looking for a response, isn’t going to keep barrelling over him, he nods. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I—”

She waves it away. “You don’t—you don’t  _ get it _ . I don’t care that you called them. I mean, I wish you told me, but you made a call. Why didn’t you use them? Why’d you go out the damn window, Bucky?”   


“He had a bomb, and he threatened to hurt you.” Bucky doesn’t allow his voice to waver. Not even in front of her clear and mounting anger. It’s his job to look after her. Even when she doesn’t love it. “It’s my job to take care of that.”

Toni looks down at her lap, and squeezes her eyes shut. “You know, at first, I thought it was just…just an awkward phrase? And then it was cute. But I…you believe that. That I’m some sort of job.” She looks at him again, and there’s fire that has nothing to do with Extremis in her eye. “People aren’t jobs, Bucky.”   


“You deserve to have someone looking after you.”

She swallows, and it looks like it hurts a bit. Bucky looks around for water to offer her, but the pitcher is on the little cart, on the other side of the bed. 

“And what did that mean, Bucky? What did looking after me entail, huh?”   


His brow furrows. “I kept you safe. I failed with HYDRA, I failed at Thanos and everything before that. But from that creep at the gala, from Beck…I kept you safe, didn’t I?”   


“And is that all looking after me meant? Just…taking care of me, whatever was necessary?” She’s not looking at him again, her good eye focuses somewhere past his right ear. “Did I rape you, Bucky?”   


Bucky rears back. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“What I asked. Did I. Force you. To do anything,” she says slow, still not looking at him.

“Of course not.”

“Really? ‘Cause here you have this idea in your head that I’m some sort of  _ job _ . That it’s this noble cause, to keep me alive and happy or whatever. And my desperate ass looks at that and thinks, cool, he wants to date me. I’m lonely and people don’t care about me like that, and he’s sweet and I like him. Did you want that, Bucky? Any of it? Or was that a job for you, too?”

The best job he’s ever had, the most fulfilling, pure purpose he could possibly ever imagine. And when he did allow himself to stop and think about it, to let himself slip into that bure bliss, he’d always thought it was a purpose he didn’t deserve, a life worth living, finally.

He doesn’t say that to Toni. Knows she doesn’t want to hear it. “Toni, I…I love you.”

She flinches again, and Bucky bites his lip. “What a time to hear that,” she says. She closes her eyes, now not even pretending to look at him. “And I’m not even sure if I can believe it. Given…well, given everything. Bucky, if that’s true—if you really feel that way—then you’ll need to get help. Real help. This can’t—this can’t continue.”

She takes her phone and holds it out to him. The too-bright screen shows a compiled list of people, with stacks and stacks of letters after their names.

“Counselors, therapists, psychologists, the lot,” she murmurs. “Bucky, FRIDAY and I…let one of them help you. Please. You can’t go on, feeling this way.”

_ This way _ . Like what he feels for Toni is wrong, like it’s something to be chipped away at, changed, taken away.

Like he’d ever let that happen.

“When’d you…why do you have this?”

Toni reaches out for his hand. “You willingly took a forty story fall, Bucky. Even without all this, even without saying…what you said. You need help.”

Bucky drops the phone onto the white hospital sheet. “I won’t do it.” He won’t. He won’t let them convince him what he feels about Toni is wrong. He won’t play into this idea, that Toni has, that she’s done something wrong.

He won’t let them take, change,  _ twist _ his purpose.

Toni takes her hand back, a loss he feels like ice creeping in. “Then…” Her voice shakes. “Then I guess this is…this is it. Over.”

A hollow sort of ringing fills his ears, like a bomb went off right next to him, like a shot passed too close to his ear. The air feels like it’s knocked out of his lungs. Only, the rest of the world remains undisturbed. “What?”

It’s only then that he sees the tear falling down Toni’s cheek, probably stinging cuts on the way down. “I can’t…you’re not well, Bucky. I’m clearly not good for you. I can’t be with you if I’m worried about…about fucking raping you, or pushing you too far, or plain taking advantage all the time.”

He reaches for her hand again, but she pulls it back. “You’re not. Toni, you’re not.”

She pretends to look at him again. “Guess we’ll never know, though.” She takes a deep, ragged breath, and part of Bucky wants to ask about her inhaler, ask how she feels, feel her ribs move under his hand. He can’t move from his chair, though. Feels glued in place. “I need…I need you to leave, Bucky. One last thing for me.”

It takes a minute to get himself out of that chair. But he does it, because she asked.

“We’re excited to have you with us, Buck,” Steve says brightly, showing Bucky to the jet the Avengers apparently flew across the country, the one he knows full well Toni designed.

He tries his best to hide his wince, from even just thinking her name.

“And it’s probably for the best,” Steve continues. “I mean, I don’t know what you two had. But it…it didn’t seem good, to me.”

Bucky grits his teeth. 

“Hey, nice to see you,” Scott Lang says, shaking his hand a bit too enthusiastically. “Been a while.”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t leave us much work to do, at Stark Industries,” he continues. “I mean, I guess I got to look at some Stark Tech? Which, totally cool. But I was mostly checking to make sure it didn’t blow up. Way less cool.”

Bucky walks past the guy, trying to find a place to sit, trying to send a clear enough message to leave him alone.

Unfortunately, Clint sits next to him. He looks Bucky over, looks over the stupid hospital bracelet still on Bucky’s wrist, looks over his entire body, his hastily purchased new clothes, and then back to Bucky’s face. “Don’t let Stark get you down,” he says. “She’s like that.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “How would you know?”   


“I can read the papers. And SHIELD, we knew stuff that the papers never heard. You’ll be fine. Rebound and move on.” Before Bucky can say anything, Clint uses his hands on his thighs to push himself upright, and then moves to the cockpit of the jet.

Everyone else goes to find seats, strapping on safety belts. As Clint takes off, Bucky closes his eyes, lets his head rest against the seatback, as he’s taken further and further away from Toni.

Well. She told him to leave, after all.

“So, I was thinking this could be your room?” Steve’s eyes, so bright and hopeful, are hard to say no to. Bucky doesn’t even try, just pushes open the wooden door and looks inside.

“Sure,” Bucky says, without even thinking about it, without even really looking around. It’s not like it matters, anyways. A room is a room is a room, now. 

“I’m just down the hall,” Steve continues. “And I know it’s basic, but I figure, we can go shopping or something?”

Bucky passes a look around the room again. It  _ is _ exceptionally basic.

He doesn’t much care.

“Sure.”

Steve takes a deep, shaky breath. “Alright, then. You just…get settled in. We have dinner around six, does that work?”

“Sure.”

Once Steve leaves, Bucky moves the desk chair over to the window and looks around outside.

It’s weird, to be in a place Toni built. She designed every inch of this Compound, made it a home she was never able to live in. 

Parts of it still  _ feel _ like Toni. He can see her hand in the layout, in the white, clean, gentle lines. But he can’t feel Toni’s presence, like he always could in the Tower, effervescent and constant.

She’s not going to pop around the corner, or come up from the lab, or play stupid games with a laser pointer and the cat. She’s not  _ here _ . She’ll likely never be here.

Because, at the end of the day, she doesn’t want him anymore. Plain and simple.

Bucky gets out of the chair and moves to the bed. He lies down face first and doesn’t bother even taking his boots off.

He doesn’t get up for dinner.

The door opens, without so much as a knock. “Hey,” Steve says quietly. “You missed dinner.” Bucky just grunts, and Steve apparently takes that as permission to continue coming into the room. “I brought you some food.”

Bucky catches Steve setting it down on the nightstand out of the corner of his eye. Looks like some sort of chicken dish.

“Just…remember to bring your dishes to the kitchen tomorrow,” Steve says. “You know, mice and all.”

Bucky highly doubts that any place designed by Toni has a mouse problem, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Hey, so…Toni called,” Steve says quietly.

Bucky rolled now, in order to see Steve better. “You? She called you?”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Well, I’ll try not to take that the wrong way. Yeah, she called me. Although she probably would’a talked to you, if you’d bothered to show up.”

Bucky sits himself up, not sure how he feels about that. She tells him to get lost, then is calling Steve, a guy she  _ still _ has a fair amount of bad blood with, not even two days later.

“What did…what did she want?”

“Wanted to know when you’d come by to pick up your stuff. And your cat,” Steve’s look is full of questions, but he has the good sense not to ask, for once. “I told her I’d ask you.”

“I don’t want any of it.” It’s true, for the stuff. He doesn’t want the grand closet Toni pulled together for him before he even moved in. He doesn’t even want his Stitch blanket, because clearly, they’re  _ not _ Ohana. 

Alpine…Alpine is just a dumb street cat, except even Bucky knows that’s not true.

Alpine doesn’t speak English and will steal Bucky’s food if he deviates his attention for a second and begs shamelessly for fancy cat treats, and she was Bucky’s friend, his confidante, his anchor before Toni.

But she’s better off with Toni, probably, with the genius who buys her expensive food and laser pointers and actually takes her to the vet for her shots. Besides, when comparing Bucky to Toni, who wouldn’t choose Toni? Bucky doesn’t blame them.  _ He _ would choose Toni over himself, in a heartbeat.

Steve’s hand on his shoulder reminds Bucky of the one schmuck in the universe who chose him over Toni. Steve’s an idiot, though, and always has been. Whether it was picking fights with people seven times his size or working with his chest all seized up or letting scientists experiment on him, he’s always been an idiot.

“You’re gonna be okay, Buck,” Steve murmurs. “I know that…I know it seems like a big deal, but…you’ll be okay.”

Bucky highly doubts it, but he nods. Anything, to get Steve to stop.

The next morning, Bucky knows he has to end his little sulking act. If nothing else, it will draw unnecessary and unwanted attention from the others. He can feel whatever he feels, but inside; externally, he has to get on with it.

Which is pretty normal, honestly. Fake it ‘til you make it. Only he’s not sure if he’s ever going to make it.

He misses Toni like he misses a limb, and he feels relatively qualified to make that comparison. Toni centered him, grounded him, made him feel warm and alive and needed. Useful. The most useful he’s ever been was at her side, and the bubbling, warm feeling it gave him is something he doesn’t anticipate finding anywhere else.

Still, he has an act to project and people to fool. A life—or whatever he’s going to call what happens next—to get on with.

Only Natasha is in the kitchen when he arrives, dishes from last night in hand. He deposits them in the dishwasher, then starts opening and closing cabinets.

She sits at a barstool, hands around a steaming mug, watching him. Studying him, more like. Like a specimen. “Cereal is in the cabinet near the fridge,” she eventually offers.

Bucky doesn’t really want cereal, but he doesn’t really want much of anything, so it’s as good an offer as any. He picks out a box without much interest, pours a bowl, and sits down on the barstool furthest from Natasha’s.

She sips her mug, still studying him. “Toni’s got a way about her.” 

He flinches, remembering a fact about Black Widows. They’re sneaking and sly, using precise, delicate cuts to get their information. Until the situation no longer calls for that. Then, they just go in for the kill.

Bucky wonders if that makes him weak prey. It’s probably true.

“What way?”

“She pulls people in. Or, well, pushes them away. One or the other. But you’re not the first person who felt more for her than she does for you, and got burnt for it.” She sets her mug down, giving him all her attention. “She’s just not…it’s not her fault. But she’s not capable of it. Not really.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything, but when he looks down, his spoon is bent slightly.

Bucky integrates himself slowly into the Compound. He starts using their gym, where he runs into most every member of the crowd. He doesn’t see Rhodes, who at first he thinks is avoiding him. Come to find out, Rhodes never came back after going out to LA for Toni. He’s likely on some classified mission somewhere.

Bucky’s grateful for it. Doesn’t know how it would go, if he ran into him here.

So he shoots with Clint. Neither of them need practice, not really, but it keeps his skills sharp and his mind off everything but the target, for a few minutes. He spars with Steve and Natasha, who apparently wants a rematch, after Germany. 

For a while, that’s his limit. Spend time working out, walk the grounds, eat a meal, back to bed. Rinse, repeat, day after day. He’s not an idiot. He knows the looks the others give him, he knows that they’re whispering.

He doesn’t know what to do about it. Supposes he could force himself to do more, be more, but it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of Bucky Barnes left, anymore.

“Come to movie night.” It’s Natasha, and she has him pinned to the mat.

Bucky shakes her off, then _ almost _ gets her pinned before she ducks away. “Why would I do that?”

“Because we’re your team, now, Barnes,” she says, landing in a crouch when Bucky ducks away from her flying thighs. “And we want to help you.”

“How will a movie help me?”

“Dinner too,” she says, landing a good hit to his kidneys that would do serious damage on anyone but him. “Because it’s the next step.”

He gets her arm, forces it down, so one move will break it. She leans over and actually  _ bites _ him.

He lets go from shock more than anything, and she saunters away, apparently done, grinning. “You gotta start trying sometime, Barnes.”

So he tries. At six o’clock, he shows up in the kitchen, following the laughter and the conversations. Everyone seems to have a job, a role in this, while Bucky awkwardly stands by the door.

“Hey, Barnes!” Sam says, giving him a smile. Can you cook?”   


Steve snorts. “Bucky can boil things with the best of us.”

“I learned more, Punk,” Bucky mutters, making his way into the kitchen, unable to escape now that all eyes are on him.

“Oh yeah? Where?”   


Bucky thinks of FRIDAY helping him, of learning just enough to keep him and Toni going on something that isn’t takeout. “I’ve been places.” He takes the knife Sam is handing him, and starts chopping ingredients for a salad.

He finishes the chopping in short order, but no one hands him a new task, not even to get out of their own. Bucky’s left to lean against the counter and watch the chaos.

Steve seems to have finished too, because he comes over to lean next to Bucky, the bashful smile on his face. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Buck.”

“Yeah,” Clint pipes up, grinning at them. “What did I tell you? Just need some time to get over her.”

“Clint…”

“What?” Clint says, neatly side-stepping Natasha trying to stomp on his foot. “That’s how all breakups go.”

“And you’re such an expert,” Sam scoffs.

Clint shrugs. “I know what I’m talking about.”

Natasha seems to be studying Bucky. “Toni might be hard to forget.”

Wanda scoffs into the dough she’s making. “Yes. Like cancer is hard to forget.”

“Wanda…” Steve sighs, but doesn’t finish the reprimand.

“You know it’s true. She corrupts, and leaves you with the damage. We have all seen it now.”

“Shut up,” Bucky says, voice soft but full of steel. “Don’t you—don’t you dare talk about her that way.”

“Hey, Bucky. She’s just...she’s trying to help,” Steve murmurs.

“This isn’t help. It’s slander. It’s  _ evil. _ ”

“Evil might be a bit harsh.”

“Hey, look. She’s trying to help,” Sam reassures softly. “If you don’t like it she’ll stop. But she’s trying to help you get over her.”

“By insulting the woman who saved the universe?”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Bucky, the thing is…you’re not gonna get over her if you keep defending her.”

Bucky has absolutely no desire to get over her. He bites his lip to keep from saying it, takes a deep breath to formulate a better thought. “Fine. Okay. Drop it.”

“Of course,” Natasha says smoothly. “No one’s going to bother you. Right?”

There are some mumbles of agreement, a few nods, and everyone gets back to their tasks. 

Bucky can’t drop his tension through dinner though. Not even when they move to the next room, movie queuing up, can he let it go.

Toni—he should have defended her better. He should be able to do more for her.

But is that still his job? If she told him to leave, does she even still want him doing things like this?

It preoccupies him, enough that he clearly misses a good chunk of the movie.

“Gonna—drink,” he manages, then gets up to return to the kitchen.

“Get me a root beer?” Steve calls after him, and Bucky just waves a hand behind him, indicating he got the message.

Of course, this invites a plethora of people shouting after him, asking for drinks. “I’ll go help,” Wanda says, and soon enough, she’s on his heels.

Just when Bucky is about to make up an excuse, escape to the bathroom or, better yet, his bedroom, she’s right behind him, in his space.

Bucky looks over her. He’d never really known her, not for longer than a brief meeting at the airport in Germany, then again in Wakanda immediately after the battle. He’s heard stories, though. Knows who trained her, knows what she can do. And it scares him.

She doesn’t  _ look _ malicious, though. Curious, more than anything. “You’re better off,” she announces.

“What?”

“With us. Without her. Look at you; she clearly wasn’t good for you. You’re better off now. And you’ll see it.”

It’s not a threat but it sounds enough like one, given her powers, given what he’s heard. “You going to make me see it?”

She recoils, a little bit, taking a step back from him. “No. I…” She looks around helplessly. Maybe she just realized she’s alone with an assassin she pissed off. “I wouldn’t. I don’t. I just...we’re here to help you forget Stark. Help you…recover from what she did to you.”

“Toni didn’t do anything to me,” he snarls. Nothing but make him feel whole again, warm and useful and  _ whole _ . 

“She hurt you, clearly.”

Bucky bites his lip, holds up the root beer he grabbed Steve. “I’m done.”

He goes to the next room, hands Steve a root beer, and mumbles something about the bathroom.

Then, without saying another word, without feeling bad in the slightest, he sneaks out a side door and heads off the Compound’s property.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's on his own again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! 
> 
> We return to Bucky post-Avengers (he was with them such a short time, hahaha). He's on his own, a little lost, functioning sometimes.
> 
> Bucky expresses some complicated thoughts about therapy here, and the value of such. Just to pre-warn you.
> 
> There is attempted drugging/kidnapping, I guess, but nothing worse than what's in the MCU.
> 
> Enjoy, all!

Once he’s back to Manhattan, Bucky knows what to do.

It takes him a few days to make it back, because he’s not in a huge rush and would really rather not be found. The Avengers may be looking for him, they may not. But it’s always better to air on the side of caution, so he walks mostly at night, taking private routes.

But then he’s in Manhattan and, despite it being a heavily surveilled city, he knows how to blend in. How to duck cameras, how to find hidden spots.

How to look like nobody of interest.

He lets his hair, carefully maintained since he met Toni, grow scraggly and a little wild again. He doesn’t bother to get a razor, and lets the beard come back in. Bucky knows how to disappear, in a city like this.

But when nobody comes after him, when Steve Rogers and his righteousness doesn’t show up to _save_ him from himself, Bucky relaxes a bit. Maybe…maybe this is his chance, to find a purpose, something not tied to his past, to the Avengers…To Toni.

He steals fresh clothes, feels bad for it for a moment, but doesn’t let it stop him. He cleans up at the Y, uses the public library to put together something resembling a resume, with the help of a librarian.

He’s back working construction, five weeks after he left the Avengers. Ten weeks after Toni kicked him loose. The work isn’t hard—not when you can lift an average sized car, not when your hands are as steady as Bucky’s are—but Bucky doesn’t relish in it like he thought he would.

Instead of letting himself slip into mindlessness, doing repetitive tasks, seeing himself accomplish something, something necessary for the people of the city, he’s left too much time to think, the exact opposite of what he wants, what he needs.

Still, he’s a good worker. He gets his job done, and done well enough. He definitely doesn’t give anyone cause to complain, or look closer.

And, at the end of the week, he gets paid. There’s food on his table—or, well, the milk crate he’s set up as a table.

Shouldn’t that be enough?

The more time that passes without someone calling him out, hunting him down, the more comfortable Bucky feels.

Never completely comfortable, of course. Comfort is for people who don’t know what’s out there in the world. He’s seventy some odd years past comfort.

But he is settled. He has routines, and he has a home—of sorts—and all in all, the days blend together. Wake up, eat if there’s something, and then go to work. After work, find another meal, and then back to his little deserted home.

No one bothers him. No one much _talks_ to him, either.

Which should be fine. A little social isolation shouldn’t be difficult for him. Hell, he went seventy years with people only talking to him to order him around or beg for their lives, and he went on the run with almost no contact for two years after that. He knows how to be alone.

Except it itches, beneath his skin. After so long of having people—of having _Toni_ —in his life, in his space, the silence itches. More than once, he tries to turn to her, to tell her something, to just hear her conversation. Maybe her laugh, if he’s lucky. 

She’s never there.

Bucky gets his chance to feel truly useful again almost two months after his return to the city. 

It’s simple, really. He’s walking home, late, late at night—another one of his midnight wanderings around the city, to pretend he’s not sleeping by choice—and there’s a scream.

Bucky doesn’t even really think about it. He just moves, barrelling through the mostly-empty streets. 

Bucky moves on autopilot more than anything. Taking out drunks is nothing, even without pulling a weapon. The guy is on the sidewalk a moment later, whimpering enough that Bucky at least knows he’s alive.

The jury is out on how Bucky feels about that, though. On the one hand, he’s not a murderer anymore. On the other hand, the scum on the ground might deserve it.

He settles it by stepping on the guy’s prone hand as he walks over to the young woman trying to fade into the wall. As soon as he gets anywhere near her, he holds his hands up in front of his chest. “Not gonna hurt you.”

She takes a deep, shaky breath. “I...I know. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Bucky says, and he means it. He can’t have things like this getting around, not if he wants to keep a low profile.

He walks off at that, only stopping long enough to say, “call the police if you want, but make sure you go somewhere safe first.” He doesn’t ask her not to mention him, but he hopes she doesn’t.

Of course she does. To be fair, it would be hard to explain what happened without mentioning him—the paper Bucky scavenges mentions that the attacker had four broken bones in his hand, a broken arm, and had done damage to his tailbone in the fall.

This leads to speculative news stories, about yet another vigilante in New York. The best he can say is she didn’t mention his metal arm, although whether that was a kindness or because she truly didn’t notice, he won’t know.

The best move would be to stop it. To turn the other way, pretend he doesn’t hear, keep his head down.

But that’s not in him. He met Steve, after all, chasing the skinny kid into a fight. Steve’s famous for not liking bullies. The deepest, long-living parts of Bucky can’t stand them either.

But he is smarter about it than Steve ever was. He starts wearing a mask again, and gloves. He keeps any interactions short and sweet, disappearing before anyone can get too good a look, can rope him into anything else.

It’s mostly small time stuff, anyways. It’s not like he’s stepping on the Avengers’ turf, with small scale things that only affect a person or two. One time he got in the middle of a bodega robbery, and the three people in the store at that hour are probably the most people who have seen him like this at one time.

It’s not a _bad_ life. As lonely as it is, it’s probably far better than he deserves at this point. He has a job, something resembling a home—with a worn down mattress and nest of blankets, and the milk crate table, sure, but it’s a home nonetheless—and even has something like a purpose again.

It doesn’t stop the empty, hollow feeling that rots him from the inside out.

Some part of him misses the cat. It even wakes him, hand searching for Alpine before he can get his eyes open. Alpine used to sleep with him, usually bugging him to wake up first thing in the morning, especially once they moved in with Toni, and she was getting regular meals.

Alpine is never there. Alpine is better off, where she is, anyways. Everything about the Tower is a much better, more stable home than he can ever provide.

He could get another feral little street cat. There are enough, if he looks. But he doesn’t delude himself. He misses his cat, but Alpine wouldn’t come even close to healing the rot inside his soul.

No, that honor belongs to Toni. Toni, who made him feel warm when the world has been ice for the better part of a century, who gave him a purpose and a reason to live and made him _want_ again. Toni, who always looked at him like something and whose every characteristic reminded Bucky of hope.

So, yeah. Without that—without warmth and a purpose and wanting and hope—Bucky can’t help the empty hole inside him. But he can at least cover it, when needed. Pretend that his new purpose is anywhere close to enough.

He pretends, until he can’t anymore. He works all day, prowls the streets all night, sleeps when he can fit it in. He fills the hole, until he can’t anymore.

He has no business being this close to the Tower. He knows what the security there is like; he designed most of it. FRIDAY will spot him within four blocks, further if Toni has her really looking.

Toni told him to leave. It wasn’t wishy-washy, or negotiable, or up for debate. Toni said it, and that’s it. He should be gone.

But he said he’d protect Toni. Way back when this all started, he said he’d protect Toni. Whether she knows he’s there or not. 

FRIDAY protects Toni. Colonel Rhodes, Ms. Potts, Hogan, Dr. Cho—they all protect Toni, in their various ways. Even the Spider Kid protects Toni, sometimes, in his own way. More than anything, Toni protects Toni. Bucky…Bucky just stares at her Tower. Imagines her inside. Wishes, more than anything, that he could be there too.

So he’s a useless stalker, but he keeps going back. Before his shift in the morning, and after he finishes for the day, he goes to the Tower. He usually stops in the park nearby. Sometimes he even eats a meal there, just watching. 

He never sees Toni, so either she’s being subtle when she leaves, or she’s staying in. Or just not going out when he’s there, watching.

He barely sees her on the news, either. There’s a Stark Industries product release, a new phone, and Toni’s at the press conference Bucky watches on a library computer. But she stands in the background, letting Pepper handle most of it.

Other than that, she’s been essentially out of the news. He knows she left the hospital not too long after he left LA, knows she likely returned to Cho’s care, knows she did real damage to herself, using the nanites and Extremis like she did, letting the Infinity Stones win for just a few minutes. He can see the damage in the video of the press conference, a little, although he has to imagine she’s hiding most of it, as always. 

So he’s left to imagine her, up in the Tower. It’d be a fairy tale if he were any sort of Prince.

He hopes she’s eating right, sleeping often enough. Breathing. Looking after herself.

He knows she doesn’t need him. She told him often enough. But still, he can’t help but hoping.

Bucky knows better than to be predictable.

As a soldier, even before he was _the Soldier_ , he knew better. As a Howling Commando, predictable movements could have gotten him killed, would have been all the signal Schmidt and his men would need. As the Winter Soldier, he would have been a bad ghost story if he were predictable.

Yet he goes back to the Tower, day after day, at the same times. He figures that the worst that can happen is Toni comes out to tell him to get lost—or, more likely, sends Rhodes or Hogan to do it—but she’s thoroughly ignored him so far.

Bucky’s an idiot, in short. He’s gotten soft, slipped up. 

Which is how HYDRA gets a needle into the back of his neck.

He begins to feel woozy immediately, which lets him know that this is a threat that came prepared. This is someone who wants the Winter Soldier down and out, and they know how to do the job.

It’s not a good sign, but he’s worked with worse. He tries to fall into a fighting stance, tries to get himself squared off with his assailant.

“What’s the matter, Soldier? You slip your leash? Lose your new handler?”

Toni is exactly the wrong thing to taunt him about, and he gets in a good lunge at the one closest to him. The attacker goes down, but Bucky starts to go weak at the knees.

Another one steps closer, dodges Bucky’s clumsy lunge, and then laughs at him lightly. “We weren’t even here for you. You’re old news, Soldier. There are…better models, now. Like your girlfriend. Former girlfriend?”

“She’s not here.”

The man steps close again, and shoves at Bucky. Clumsy, weak as he is, he falls to his knees. “I know. But she’ll come for you.”

“Doubt it.” 

“You don’t think she’ll come for her little pet?” Bucky’s vision is greying, but even he can see the smug, condescending face in front of him, looking down on him. He waits a beat, but Bucky doesn’t respond. Both because, yes, he doesn’t think Toni will come for him, he doesn’t need to be made to say it, and because it’s becoming more taxing to speak. He shrugs. “Well. You’re a halfway decent consolation prize, even if she doesn’t. But she will. Stark takes care of her toys.”

The whine of repulsors is unmistakable. Bucky’s superior hearing perhaps picks them up first, but his captors start looking nervous a second later.

At least the smart ones do. The one who’s been speaking to him has a look of _anticipation_.

Bucky really hopes Toni kills him, if only for his arrogance, in underestimating her.

Bucky expects to hear Toni come in with a line, a quip, a verbal assault that she seems to always have at the ready. But it doesn’t happen like that.

No, instead it’s hard and fast, nothing but repulsor blasts. Bucky remembers what she said about those being able to take down a tank. Those men never stood a chance.

She is silent as she works, deadly and fast, and Bucky’s vision might be going, so all he sees is a red and gold and blue blur.

It hits him, then, that she’s probably not in the suit. It would explain the silence. He knows she can deploy remotely. Maybe she’s not even piloting it; maybe FRIDAY is, as a countermeasure against HYDRA in their backyard.

That theory is shot to hell the moment the shooting, the shouting, stops. The armor’s helmet retracts, revealing an occupant who is very much Toni, here, in the flesh.

Her curls are wild, her good eye wide and a little frantic, pupils dilated still from the fight. Her scars stand in stark, almost shocking relief on her face, and Bucky almost falls completely to the ground trying to reach for her.

It’s like the hole inside him is filled, it’s like he can _breathe_ again. Which is ironic, considering how much harder it currently feels to fill his lungs.

She bites her lip, and Bucky wants to reach out, stop that, maybe kiss that lip instead. 

Instead, she kneels down, grabs at him. “Bucky? Bucky, you okay, Honey?”

He’s about to pass out, he can feel it, but that’s immaterial right now. He summons up his best smile—by her reaction, he’s not sure if it works—and says, “I’m great. You’re here.”

He wakes up in the most comfortable bed he’s been in for a while. There’s a hole in his memory, which isn’t immediately alarming. Bucky has a lot of memory problems.

But it is unusual to wake up somewhere _nice_ and not know how he got there. That’s a new one.

And then he smells her. Toni. Her scent lingers on the air, even on the sheets of the bed he’s lying in. He closes his eyes again and just soaks it in.

It’s like liquor sliding down his throat, settling in his stomach. Warm and slightly fuzzy, he breathes deep and takes it all in.

It’s coming back to him as he continues to breathe deeply. Right. Him watching the Tower, being a fool, allowing HYDRA the chance to corner him. Toni—always too good for her own good—coming after him.

The door creaks open, and Bucky looks up. Toni’s there, holding a tray, a blanket draped over one arm, looking a little worn down but healthy enough, _whole_ , in a way that makes Bucky’s heart skip.

There’s a dip in the bed, followed immediately by a meow, and then Alpine’s furry head is rubbing against his knee. “Hi, sweetie,” he murmurs, scratching her head. “You been good?”

“Yes, Bucky. The cat’s been good. She misses you, though,” Toni says, setting the tray down on the bedside table. He glances at it, sees breakfast, and then up at her before he finds that too hard and returns to looking at the cat.

Toni, for her part, ignores him almost to bustle around him, throwing the blanket over him, making Alpine _meow_ and wiggle her way out, before setting the tray of food right next to Bucky. Bucky takes in the whole scene. She brought the Stitch blanket she bought for him, so long ago. He gets choked up for a moment, but manages to squash it down.

“Miss me? When she has all this?”

“Yeah,” Toni says, and she sits on the edge of the bed, making Bucky acutely aware of how close she is—as if he wasn’t already. “Cats choose their people, Bucky. Not the other way around.”

Alpine continues to push into his hand for pets, and doesn’t even let herself get distracted by the tray of food on the bed, so Bucky has to acknowledge that Toni might have a point.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Toni says after a moment. 

“Sorry.”

She lets out a breath. “It’s not something you can really be sorry for, I guess. You didn’t ask them to drug you.”

“They thought I’d lure you out.”

She gives him an almost smile. “Well, lookit that. It worked. Only thing is, they always underestimate how easily I can blow them up.”

“Yeah.”

It’s silent for a minute. Bucky doesn’t even touch the food, not without Toni’s say-so, even as he does realize he’s definitely hungry. He wonders how long he’s been out, realizes he must’ve been marked no-call, no-show at work. And considering the under-the-table nature of his work, his job is probably gone.

He’ll find another one. Or not. It’s not really a concern right now.

“Why were you there, Bucky?”

Bucky flinches, the quick, no-nonsense tone familiar enough to him but not exactly desired. “Why do you think?”

She tilts her head at him. “I think you come by every damn day, and never come in to say hi.”

He flushes at being caught out, but of course she knows. He himself trained FRIDAY to look. He was predictable, he fit a pattern. FRIDAY would have seen him in thirty seconds flat. Probably sooner, because he’s _him._ “Would you have let me in?” He challenges.

She reaches out, lays her flesh hand on his, and it feels like electricity zipping across his skin, pleasant and warm and buzzing inside him. “Yeah, I would’ve,” she says softly. “I would’ve asked the same thing as before, if you wanted to stay. But I never wanted you out there, all alone.”

“Yeah, well.” He stops, clears his throat, because it’s not her fault he isn’t good enough for her. “I won’t go, you know.” Best get it out of the way quickly, because as nice as this bed is, as nice as her hand on his is, having Alpine rub at his other hand, he won’t lead her on. She should know. He hasn’t changed his mind, won’t let someone mess with him again. Won’t let someone tell him how he feels about her is wrong.

Bucky might not be the most stable guy in the world, but he’s more stable than he’s been in a good seventy years. He’s not going to let anyone mess with that.

Her smile is still crooked, and, right then, heartbreaking. “I know,” she murmurs. “You made yourself fuckin’ clear.” She turns away for a minute. “And here I was, worried you’d do anything I asked.”

Bucky tries to catch her eye again, but she refuses. “Hey, I said no to you,” he points out. “That means you’re not worried about…about fucking _raping_ me or something, right?” 

Toni’s metal hand squeezes the bedsheets into a little bunch. “No,” she says shortly. “I’m still fucking terrified I took advantage of you, Bucky, Honey. I’m worried that if I stay here with you then it’ll happen again.”

“Toni.” He tries to reach for her hand, but she won’t let him touch her. “Toni, I _love you_. You’re the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Please…”

“I love you too,” she says, and it’s so soft a breeze could carry it away forever. “Which is why I have to do this. I love you, even when you don’t give a fuck about yourself.”

Bucky…likes himself just fine. Likes the use he carries, likes the strength he can bring to Toni. Likes himself even more when she’s around.

“Does…does this mean you’re throwing me out?”

Toni still looks sad, and Bucky wants to soothe the sadness away, but knows his touch wouldn’t be welcome. “No. I…I did things wrong, last time. Sue me, I was hurt and scared. I’ve been told that’s normal.” Her mouth curls, her nose wrinkles, for a second, but she doesn’t stop to explain. “But I shouldn’t have put you in that position. Kicked you out of your home. So…you can stay. Should stay, if you want to. I’ll go.”

Fear grips Bucky, clogging in his throat before he manages to swallow it down. “Toni. Doll. No, I—”

Toni shakes her head. “I’m leaving either way, Bucky,” she says softly. “I’m going out to California for a while. And while I can’t tell you where to go, I don’t wanna see you stalking me outside my home there, got it? Go wherever you want. But FRIDAY will always let you in here. It’s your home too.”

“Why are you doing this to us?” Bucky demands. “Why…we were happy. I thought.”

Toni’s next breath is deep and ragged. “I was. So, so happy, Honey. But…but I’ve needed help for a long time. I see that now. And I didn’t see it. Not until I realized how hurt you were.”

“We were happy,” Bucky repeats.

“Nothing says we couldn’t be happy _and_ healthy.”

But there is, he thinks. There must be, because anything that changes what he has, anything that upsets the delicate balance of what he managed to find, will simply devastate it.

 _This is my family. I found it, all on my own_. H

His hand bunches in the blanket Toni’s thrown over him.

Bucky closes his eyes. Everything is so delicate, so precious. He can’t have it taken away.

“So, you’re leaving.”

“I’m leaving,” she agrees, and it sounds like she’s swallowed glass. Nevertheless, she doesn’t back down. “I…FRIDAY will look after you, if you stay here. Don’t worry about anything. Please. Let FRIDAY help.”

She hesitates a moment, then turns to fully face him, leans forward and kisses him once on the forehead, a gentle brush of lips that’s nowhere near enough, and paradoxically too much, hot enough to burn his frigid soul, after so long away from her.

And after that, forehead still burning, Bucky has to watch her leave. She hesitates at the door, but doesn’t look back.

He stays in bed until he absolutely has to get up, and even then, it’s only to feed Alpine. Toni said to use the Penthouse apartment, she must have cat food around here, presumably the fancy kind that he doesn’t like to think of the cost of.

The living room makes him stop dead in his tracks, though.

“FRIDAY,” he croaks, “what is all this?”

But he knows, and he doesn’t need FRIDAY’s confirmation. It’s a cat jungle gym, just like Toni talked about way back when they first moved in. There’s tunnels and platforms and dangling toys, ramps and elevated cat beds, scratching posts ten feet in the air.

It entirely ruins the aesthetic Bucky is sure Pepper carefully curated at one point, the expensive furniture offset by the homemade, loving cat structure taking up most of the wall space. Toni has even moved paintings, many of which Bucky knows were expensive.

“Boss has had some time on her hands, recently,” FRIDAY says. “Dr. Cho had advised her to stay home while she healed, and she seemed disinclined to leave after the order was lifted, except for her appointments.”

“Appointments?” Bucky asks absently, still taking in what Toni created, before he realizes that it’s a stupid question likely to get shut down. Still. There’s a medical office in the Tower, and Toni conducts most business from here. He knows she hasn’t gone to any fancy galas, because he would have seen that in the news.

FRIDAY hesitates a moment, but then says, “Boss says to tell you. She’s been seeing a therapist.”

Bucky feels that like a punch to the gut. “Why?”

“That I can’t tell you,” FRIDAY says. “Only that Boss says she wants to be healthy again.”

 _There’s nothing wrong with her_ , Bucky thinks so fiercely, it’s like an ache. He wants a weapon in his hand, although he has no idea what he’d do with it, who he’d target.

“Call her.”

“Sergeant Barnes…”

“Call her. Now.” He’s never this rude to FRIDAY, wouldn’t dream of it, but he needs to speak with Toni _right now_.

She picks up on the third ring. “Bucky?”

Just hearing her voice makes him warm. “What’re you doing?”

“Right now? About to get on a plane.”

“No. With…with therapy. With that. Why would…”

“It’s making me better. Feel better.” She takes a breath, and he listens, desperately clinging to the sound. “I was in _pain_ , Bucky. And my friends finally convinced me that I didn’t have to be anymore.” She’s silent for a minute. “Like I should have tried to convince you, a long time ago.”

“Didn’t I help?” He asks, knows desperation is creeping up in his tone. He starts to pace. “Didn’t I make you feel better?”

“Yeah,” she says, voice soft. “Like a bandaid, Bucky. And I wanted to fix the wound. Besides…I know you hate it when I say this, but that isn’t your job.”

There’s silence, for a moment. Some part of Bucky is screaming internally, that Toni thinks he wasn’t enough. That he failed her, failed his job. That he couldn’t take care of her.

He doesn’t say it, though, because if he says it, he’ll yell, and he’s not going to yell at Toni. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—even if his mother had never made her feelings on men who did such things perfectly clear.

“I’ve gotta go, Bucky. My plane’s cleared.” Bucky wants to beg her to stay on the line, to turn around and come back to him. To let him prove that he can take care of her. “Bucky, listen to me.”

“‘M listenin’.”

“Bucky, FRIDAY has…has everything I wanted to give you. She and I did the research. On…on therapists. You should look at it. Do your own research.” It’s silent for a moment, but not enough time for Bucky to get a world in edgewise. “FRIDAY will support you no matter what. But just…think about it.”

Toni doesn’t wait for a response, just clicks the line off. Bucky hears the beep, then is left standing around in the too-big, empty apartment.

He ends up seated with his back against the window, blanket draped over his lap, watching the door like Toni is going to come walking back through.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is alone, and has to sort out his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! This is very late. Time is meaningless, except the deadlines from work. Those somehow remain real.
> 
> This chapter does not have Toni in person. Bucky starts to sort some shit out.
> 
> I want you all to know what a horrendous bitch this chapter was. That's not a warning, but I feel you all need to know that I think I spent a solid two weeks writing it and it was deleted and re-written about four times.
> 
> Warning: in therapy, Bucky discusses Toni's thoughts about Bucky's ability to consent, and his willingness to die for her, and whether that's some sort of suicidal tendency. 
> 
> Another warning: This writer, despite it definitely for sure 100% being a good idea, has never been to therapy. I did my best, but this is mostly spoon-feeding steps Bucky might need to go through. Also a lot of Socratic-style questioning (this is the teacher in me). I hope it works on some level.
> 
> Thanks for reading! See you Thursday for the last piece of this.

Bucky doesn’t know why he stays in Toni’s home.

Except he does. Because it’s Toni’s house. Because the sheets still smell a little bit like her, because if he looks just right he sometimes almost sees her, out of the corner of his eye. Because she asked him to.

But when it becomes clear that she isn’t coming back, things get more difficult. Tension makes even  _ his _ muscles ache. His sleep, never exactly relaxed, becomes downright unmanageable. 

It’s when he snaps at Alpine that he knows he has a problem. Sure, she’s not particularly impressed with his behavior and just gives him a look, but she also avoids him until he gets on his belly with treats in hand to apologize.

“FRIDAY?” 

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”   


“Do you have a way to contact Princess Shuri?”

FRIDAY doesn’t respond, but the line starts to ring, so Bucky takes that as the affirmative it is. 

“Do you have any idea what time it is here?” 

Bucky winces, then does the math. “Almost nine am?” He tries. It can’t be right, given how mad she sounds, but it’s what the numbers tell him.

“Exactly. Don’t you know I’m a teenager? We need our sleep. Our brains are wired that way.”

“I, uh…I’m sorry.”

“You should be. Now, what can I help you with?”

Bucky takes a deep breath. Might as well bite the bullet. “You know that…thing you used? To help with my triggers? With the glasses and the memories?”

“Retro-Framing. Yes.”

“Could I use it again?”

“Why?”

“I need it to fix me.” Fix me. Make me what Toni wants. Whatever. It worked before.

“Why? Have you had an issue with the trigger words?”

“No, no,” he hastens to reassure her. “It worked. Which is why I wanna use it again. I have this…” He sighs, not sure how to say it. “Toni thinks my brain is messed up. Thinks I’m messed up. So I thought…”

“If Toni Stark thought Retro-framing could help you, she would have offered it to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Toni Stark invented the initial framework for Retro-Framing. She called in BARF. You can find that information online. And, although this isn’t online, Toni Stark’s BARF was the basis for the stolen technology Quentin Beck used to attack her.”

Bucky feels like his brain needs to reboot. “Then what…how…”

“She and I collaborated. Wakanda medical technology, paired with the concept for retro-framing, proved enough to release the effect of the triggers. Toni Stark knows what Retro-Framing can do. If she thought it would work, she would have told you.”

Bucky’s brain is spinning. Toni had partially invented the technology that had saved him from HYDRA. Toni had allowed him to rejoin the world, to be a person again after all HYDRA had done. And she’d never said a word.

“Why don’t you ask her?” Shuri asks, and Bucky doesn’t think she’s imagining the gentle tone.

“She’s gone.” It sounds hollow even to his own ears. Gone. Gone, like on the other side of the country. Gone, like not coming back.

Because he’s not enough. Because whatever this is inside him, it’s not enough for Toni. Not good enough.

“I’m sorry, Sergeant Barnes,” she says softly. She pauses a moment, then continues. “In any case, I’m sorry. It won’t work.”

“I need something.” Something. Anything, anything at all, to make Toni come back.

“This isn’t a magic solution. It was meant to work in a specific set of circumstances, and it did. It is not a fix-all.”

It’s not fair, not fair to her. Not fair of him to be relying on a teenager. He closes his eyes, breathes deep through his nose. “Thank you. I…I’m sorry.”

“Sergeant Barnes,” she says, just when he’s about to signal FRIDAY to end the call.

He hesitates. “Yes, Princess?”

“Whatever issues you’re having…humans have been handling these things for as long as we’ve lived. You don’t need expensive cutting edge technology.”

Bucky closes his eyes, and signals for FRIDAY to hang up.

So, Bucky does something he didn’t want to do. He tries therapy.

It’s too little too late, of course. A part of him will always wonder what could have happened, if he didn’t wait to give Toni what she wanted, if he gave in when she asked.

But it’s too late, and she’s gone, and he just has to hope that it will be enough, now.

It’s funny, how he would have given her anything else without question, without even thinking about it. Die for her? Absolutely. Kill for her, if she asked, if she needed it? No hesitation. Stand between her and anything, go into enemy territory, lay down on a bomb for her. Easily, without a single question.

But therapy is where he drew the line.

It feels like he’s clay, like he’s constantly being squeezed between someone or other’s hands, modeled into the new version of Bucky Barnes, again and again and again. And only Toni’s hands had ever been gentle about it. Only Toni’s hands have ever been wanted.

All the best parts of him came from Toni. He can’t have them taken away, lost or warped in this latest re-shaping.

So he’s full of trepidation, and anger, resentment, and not a little bit of fear, but he does it. Because she asked.

He doesn’t say much at first. In fact, beyond introducing himself, he keeps his mouth shut, before she can give her any ammo to use against him.

It’s the third appointment when she raises her eyebrow at him. “What is the benefit of coming but never speaking?”

The benefit? He’s done what Toni asked. He met her requirement. That’s the benefit.

But, two sessions later, he knows it’s not working. If this is a test from Toni, he still hasn’t passed. 

“What would you need to feel well again?”

It’s an interesting question, and the Bucky of two weeks ago would simply say  _ Toni _ and be done with it, if he said anything at all. 

“A purpose,” he eventually manages. “I don’t…I don’t know what to do without having a purpose.”

“And Toni was your purpose.” It’s half question, half statement, but Bucky nods along anyways. “What else is in your life that’s fulfilling?”  
Bucky finally understands the value in paying a therapist when she manages not to react when he admits the only other fulfilling element in his life is his cat.

A week later, he sits down with her again. He has to admit, he’s gotten into a bit of a habit. Same time, same place. It’s comforting, in its way.

“So, how did our list go this week?” The list of things he can do to feel fulfilled. Small things, mostly. Like building a routine or getting a job or spending more time with his cat, or picking up a hobby.

The Bucky of a few weeks ago would have lied. Would have said it went great, so he can pass the test. “It didn’t.”

She makes a humming noise, and Bucky doesn’t think he’s imagining that she sounds sort of like she expected that. It doesn’t sound angry though. “Do you know why not?”

“I don’t want a new purpose.” 

She nods, like she expected that too, and Bucky doesn’t know if it’s terrifying or relieving to be known like this. It vacillates back and forth, somewhere in the middle before swinging to either extreme. Right now, it feels more comforting than anything, he supposes.

“Well, with your old purpose no longer an option, what’s your plan?”

_ No longer an option _ . It feels like a punch in the face, and suddenly being known isn’t such a relief anymore. It  _ burns _ , it aches deep inside like he’s being scooped out and left all over again.

“I want her back.”

“And is saying that going to get her back?”

Jesus Christ. Bucky feared many things when he started doing this for Toni, but he never actually thought it would genuinely physically hurt.

Toni isn’t coming back. Whether he does therapy or not, whether he meets some secret hidden standard, whether he waits forever or actually starts to move on…it’s all moot. She’s not waiting for him, or coming back for him.

Toni…Toni told him to get lost, even if she said it far nicer. Toni’s done with him.

He’ll never be done with her. Not really. He can’t let her go, has his feelings for her beaten into his bones, so deep he could never get her out even if he wanted to. And he doesn’t want to, not ever. Toni is as integral to him  _ being _ as the blood in his veins, as war is and Brooklyn is and, unfortunately, HYDRA is and every other remnant left on his soul over the years. And Toni’s the only one he ever sought out, ever wanted. He’s not letting that go.

But the fact remains that he needs something else, now. Whether he really wants it or not.

They start slow, tackling one item at a time, waiting until he’s built a new routine before adding anything else.

So he gets a job. He gets hired as a bouncer at some trendy club, and he at least gets to throw out handsy drunks. It’s maybe not the  _ best _ use of a super soldier and HYDRA’s killing machine, but it is a use. In a strange way, he’s helping people.

And then it’s hobbies. She has all sorts of ideas for hobbies, all sorts of things he should try out. She doesn’t push, but it’s clear that Bucky has no basis to start thinking about hobbies. He takes her suggestions, if not gratefully, then at least willingly.

He’s careful not to spend too much of Toni’s money, despite FRIDAY assuring him he’s more than allowed to. In fact, she says Toni told her to  _ let _ him, that she left specific accounts with larger numbers than Bucky can properly imagine just for him.

He tries not to think about it too much, because it hurts. So he just doesn’t spend the money on anything other than food—and, once the first paycheck comes in, not even on that—and firmly quashes any thoughts about Toni leaving him money. Still looking after him. Maybe caring about him.

So he keeps his hobbies cheap. Mostly he starts reading books again, which leads to walking to the local library and spending time there when he’s not working, which means he meets Jan, the ever-patient librarian who helps him track down new books based on what he’s liked so far. 

People are…people are complicated, especially people who aren’t Toni, although Toni was never simple, either. People are complicated and Bucky is certainly not equipped to deal with them. Jan must have her own thoughts about him, probably says something to the other librarians when he’s done, but she’s polite to his face and Bucky thinks he gets better at it with time. 

And then, some weeks after that, there’s an ad about an animal shelter and Bucky finds himself walking over, and soon enough he’s scooping cat poop and cleaning bedding and playing with the cats, and that’s nice too.

So, as he almost-happily reports to his therapist, he has a life now. A life that has very little to do with Toni, other than living in her house and talking to her AI because Alpine, as good of company as she is, doesn’t talk back, anf FRIDAY has always been a good conversationalist. And it almost feels fulfilling.

“Why isn’t it enough?” Bucky demands. It’s been months now, and he talks more in these sessions than he used to. “I’ve done everything you asked, and it’s not enough.”   


“Is it better than before?”   


Just about anything, short of HYDRA, would be better than the situation he was in when Toni first left. He doesn’t want to admit that, though. Wants to hold onto the little bit of frustration he’s managed to pull together.

She sighs. “Bucky, this is a process. And you’ve made progress. That’s a good thing. We should celebrate that.”

“When will it be enough?”   


“What’s enough?” She asks him, and Bucky feels the sinking in his gut, knowing that the evasive answer is the answer in and of itself; it will never be enough. He’s never going to make it out of this.

He pushes on anyways, though, more out of ingrained habit than anything. He works every night but Tuesday, goes to the animal shelter four days a week, the library at least twice a week. He cooks for himself and buys Alpine’s pet food at the shop four blocks down from the Tower. He vacuums the apartment every Thursday, even though Toni left the roomba’s behind, and he does his laundry on Saturdays.

His therapist says routines are good. Bucky thinks they’re just another way to keep him moving even when he doesn’t want to.

And then…she asks him a question that actually takes him by surprise. Maybe she thinks it’s been long enough. Maybe she thinks he’s  _ stable _ enough to ask this, now.

“What would you say is the reason why your relationship with Toni ended?”   


He flinches. “I wasn’t good enough for her, I guess.”   


“Did she say that, or are you putting words into her mouth?”   


He opens his mouth, then closes it again. “She was worried. That she took advantage of me. Which is stupid.”

“Why is it stupid?”   


“I could break her in half.” Toni is…Toni is made of iron and steel and is untouchable, but also physically very, very breakable. Maybe in her suit, she could push Bucky around. But she never ever would have done that.

“Would you?”   


“Are you asking if I’d hurt her?” Bucky’s fist curls up in his lap. “Never.”   


'She studies him for a moment. “Toni was your purpose. You’ve told me that a few times. What does that entail?”   


“I’d take care of her.”

“How?”   


“However she needed.” Like tackling a guy with a bomb down forty stories. He’d have happily shot Beck—or anyone else, for that matter—for her. He’d kill for her, die for her, no question asked. Everything else in the middle was unquestionable.

“Like have sex with her?”   


Bucky flinches again. He’s been tortured and given less reaction, before. But he takes a steadying breath, and then tries to answer her question. “Toni…Toni said that. At the end,” he mumbles. “That she couldn’t know if she raped me or not.” He looks at her. “She didn’t.”

“Well, that’s good. Why do you think she thought that was an issue?”   


“She was worried I wouldn’t say no to her.”

“Would you have?”   


“I did about therapy.” Her raised eyebrow is a good hint that that’s probably not his strongest response. “She didn’t make me do anything.”   


“Could she have?”   


Bucky doesn’t know. Can’t imagine a world where Toni ever would force him to do anything. Can’t imagine there being anything she would want that he wouldn’t do.

Bucky decided when he left HYDRA that he wouldn’t be a killer anymore. He also knows he’d kill for Toni if she asked or if it was needed, no hesitation. Once you cross that line, everything else seems small potatoes in comparison.

“You might not have been capable of giving consent,” she says quietly to him. “You might not have been fully capable of differentiating between what you wanted and what she wanted.”

“Why does that matter? I wanted it either way.” She waits him out, and he slumps. He  _ knows _ full well why it might be important. He might be struggling to apply it to himself, but he gets it.   


Therapy, if nothing else, has taught him this much.

“I’m not going—I’d still die to save her,” he says, jutting his chin out, challenging her. Maybe this is where he fails therapy, after all.

She studies him for a moment. “Usually, I’d say we have a lot of work left to do, but, considering everything, this might be progress.”

“Everything? Like how fucked up I am?”   


“Everything, like the whole super hero thing. Whether or not you’re an Avenger, I know what you’ve done, and dying for people…I know you have a rather skewed view on that.”

“So I’m okay?”   


“Do you  _ want _ to die for her?”   


“It wouldn’t be a bad way to go.” He’s learned a thing or two, though, since starting this whole adventure in therapy. “If you’re asking if I’m suicidal, the answer is no. I don’t wanna die. I just…” He struggles with the words. She’s right. His relationship with death is probably a little different, a little more comfortable, than hers. “I don’t wanna die, but I will if I need to. And if it’s her or me, I choose me. Every time.”

She purses her lips. “Because that’s your job?”   


Yes. No. Wouldn’t anyone die for the people they love? 

“Think about it,” she encourages him. “You don’t need an answer today.”   
  


He thinks about it as he walks to work, and to the library, and to the shelter. He thinks about it while he makes dinner and while he lies in bed at night.

This is what he was so scared of. They’re taking his job away, corrupting his purpose. And he’ll fall apart without a purpose, he knows he will. Doesn’t know how to exist without one.

He absently pets Alpine, curled up near his metal arm as sleep eludes him. “Good cat,” he murmurs.

Alpine makes the little chirp that means she’s waking up, and moves herself closer to him, pushing into his hand. His night vision, almost as good as hers, catches her look of devotion as she pushes into his hand insistently.

“Thank God you don’t ask hard questions,” he grunts, and gives into scratching her head again.

The thing about Alpine is, she leaves him plenty of room to think, which means he can’t escape this stupid assignment from his therapist.

“It’s a hard question, you know.”

“Tell me why.” It’s as gentle as most things she says, inviting, but Bucky still feels the pressure.

“Shouldn’t taking care of her be something I want to do? Shouldn’t it be a good thing?”   


“What’s the difference between a job and something you want to do?”   


Bucky bites his lip and avoids her eyes, a technique he never used before he met Toni. “I just…I want to take care of people. It makes me feel good.”

She leans back a little further in her chair, assessing him. “Well, then. I’d guess we’ve found our next task.”

Bucky swallows nervously. “And what’s that?”   


“Figuring out what taking care of people means.”


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all!
> 
> Thanks for coming on this journey with me. I had fun.
> 
> I went back and forth for a while on whether this fic should have an epilogue, but ultimately it ends here right now. An epilogue might tie it up with a neater ending, but this is a promising and happy ending, and I like where they get to.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this.

Bucky locks the door of his apartment while simultaneously kicking off his shoes after his shift. Can’t be too careful. It is New York, after all, and still the middle of the night, at that.

Whatever the hour, Alpine still greets him at the door. He worries her meows might actually be enough to bother his neighbors, considering the thin walls, but no one’s complained yet. It might be his enhanced hearing that makes her seem so loud.

“Yeah, yeah, I got’cha,” he murmurs, reaching down to pet her head before moving to the kitchen to get her food. He’s not really sure if a three am meal is dinner or breakfast, but it’s when he gets home and Alpine has adjusted to eating then.

It’s not the only adjustment Alpine has had to make, and she definitely did miss the climbing gym at Toni’s penthouse. But she adjusted with time, just like he did.   


Moving has been important. Once he’d managed to stack up a little cushion of money, and talked to his therapist about it enough, he’d started looking for a place. 

It’s maybe not the best place in the world. It’s certainly not Stark Tower. But it’s his, all his, and it’s full of his stuff, and it works. Sure, the stuff is mostly books and cat toys, but he rescued an old couch and even has a real mattress and his kitchen table is a card table, not a milk crate, so he’s made progress.

Leaving FRIDAY had actually been hard. But she made Bucky a phone number that he can call to reach her at any time, which helps. 

Alpine devours the food he gets her. He gets out of her way, knowing how she is about her space when she eats, and retreats to the tiny little kitchen, where he makes five packets of instant noodles. The perfect food for a super soldier who doesn’t want to cook.

After his meal is done—startlingly fast—Alpine follows him to the tiny bathroom, where he washes off the day before heading to bed.

Alpine curls up next to him in bed, poking him in the spine a bit until he bends into a shape she deems appropriate. 

It’s a life, he thinks. It’s not perfect, but it keeps him busy. And at this point, that’s maybe the best be can ask for.

There’s a knocking at his front door.

It gets more insistent, too, when he tries to ignore it to get back to sleep.

Groaning, he chucks his pillow on the floor, grabs a shirt, and makes his way to the door, Alpine almost getting underfoot twice.

“What do you want?” He’s already snarling before the door even opens fully, only to be met with a very unimpressed Colonel Rhodes.

“Still sleeping? It’s nine.”

“I worked until three,” Bucky grumps, but he moves aside to let the Colonel in. “What’s going on?”   


Maybe it’s Toni. He doubts Rhodes would come to him, would even  _ think _ about him, but if Toni needs something, Bucky’ll be there.

He takes a deep breath and shuts his door again, giving himself a moment to gather his thoughts. It’s okay, he reminds himself. He’s allowed to still love her.

Just as long as he has boundaries.

Rhodes looks around the place, not even bothering to hide it. “Thought I’d offer you a job.”

“I have a job.”

“With the Avengers.”

That stops Bucky dead a minute. “I left them last time I was there.”

Rhodes snorts. “I heard about that. No one says you have to  _ live _ with them. I wouldn’t live with them if you paid me. Which, you know, they actually tried for a bit, there.”

“Why me?”   


“Why not you? Metal arm, sniper skills, combat history…am I missing something about you, here?”   


“I haven’t fought since the aliens.”

“Oh, we both know that’s not true. Little vigilante side action?”   


Bucky bites his lip. “I don’t even do that much anymore.”   


“Would you like to?”   


“Why me? Why now?”

“Got some HYDRA activity,” Rhodes admits. “And if that’s something you’d like to avoid, I’m happy to butt out. I’d get it. But if you want a crack at them…”   


There’s a rush, something coursing through Bucky. The same kind of feeling that caught him those first few days after he escaped HYDRA.

“When do I start?”   
  


It turns out, that requires getting  _ another _ psychologist to sign off on him, then passing a physical test, then doing enough reading that Bucky is halfway convinced he could pass the bar exam after. But he does it.

And the first time he gets to set a HYDRA base on fire, it’s all worth it.

“I haven’t felt like this in a long time,” he admits to his therapist.   


“That’s good. Is it good?”

“Yeah. It’s good.”

It’s a  _ purpose _ , and it’s not the same, but destroying HYDRA is a mission he can get behind. 

Of course, working with the Avengers comes with…other elements. Like Steve.

Steve, which Bucky still loves dearly, but he knows he and Steve don’t see the same thing when they look at each other.

Still, they work together, and it’s not fair to either of them if Bucky doesn’t at least try.

“I’m sorry you felt like you had to leave,” Steve says when Bucky works up the nerve to let the two of them sit down together. “I…I hope you know you can talk to me now.”

“Talk about what, Steve?”   


“Anything. Everything. I’m here for you, Buck.” There’s an effusive sense of warmth that’s spreading through him—there’s something to be said for a guy who, no matter what, over the course of a century, will never back down from him—but it’s ruined by his next words. “And, hey. I’m sorry about…about Toni, alright?”   


“What about her?”   


“We were just trying to make you feel better. But we won’t, we won’t talk about her. At all. You can forget.”

Bucky wants to laugh because  _ forget _ is the last thing he’ll ever do. No one, least of all him,  _ forgets _ Toni Stark.

“Steve,” he says slowly, gathering his thoughts. “We’re not gonna talk about her anymore. Not ‘cause I don’t wanna talk about her. ‘Cause you’re not a good person to talk about her with.”   


“Why not?” Steve has the gall to look hurt, like Bucky’s actually said something cutting and rude.

“‘Cause you hate her, and I’m not gonna stop loving her, and if you insult her again I’ll walk away and only speak to you in the field.”  _ If I don’t kill you _ remains unspoken, because that’s the type of thing that would count against his Avengers’ psych evaluation.

“I can…Bucky, I don’t  _ hate _ her.”

“Could’a fooled me.”

Steve takes a deep breath. “Toni and I haven’t always gotten along. You…you know that. But I don’t hate her. I thought…she made you sad, Buck. She hurt you.”

“Not her fault.” Bucky looks at Steve. “Don’t talk about her if you don’t have something nice to say.”

Steve raises an eyebrow but nods. “Sure, bud. Whatever you want.”

So, with a tenuous but seemingly strengthening renewed alliance with Steve, Bucky heads full tilt into this Avengers thing.

He trains with them, and follows them in a few small-scale assignments, and even learns the whole UN schtick from Rhodes.

It’s complicated, to say the least. Rhodes walks a balancing wire, advocating for their needs in front of the UN and also listening to the rest of the world.

Bucky doesn’t have to do that much in that regard, thank god. But it does give him some insight into the Accords, and the fight he’d been unwillingly dragged into last time around.

It’s after one such virtual meeting that Bucky catches Rhodes with his head in his hands, rubbing his temples. “Never enough to go around,” he mumbles.

“Something I can do?”

“Hand me the Advil?”

Bucky tosses the bottle over, and Rhodes fishes out a couple pills and swallows them quickly. “Something you need?”   


“Nah.”

Rhodes rolls his neck to look at Bucky more clearly. “This a social visit?”

“Just checking in.” Bucky does tend to do this, when he’s working out of the Avengers’ compound. Plus, Rhodes is technically his ride back to the city still. His Avenger’s salary isn’t enough for a car and parking in New York.

“Right. You ready to go?”   


“Whenever you are.”

Rhodes starts packing up his office, when his phone starts ringing. He picks it up, glances at the display, and frowns. “I’ll meet you at the car in a bit, Barnes.” He turns to the phone, and Bucky is leaving but it’s not fast enough. “Yeah, Toni?”   


Bucky backs out fast. This conversation isn’t for him.

Rhodes meets him near the garage twenty minutes later. “Sorry for the wait.”

“Hey, you’re giving me the ride. I can wait.”

Rhodes pulls out and makes it out of the Compound gates before Bucky breaks. “How…how is she?”   


“Toni? She’s okay.” It’s silent for another moment before Rhodes huffs. “What do you want to know about her, Barnes?”   


“I don’t wanna pry, I—” He’s not stalking her. He doesn’t know any more about her current life than shows up on TV, and even then he doesn’t go looking for it. She said not to show up outside her home and he has been very vigilant, keeping a distance, and he can admit it’s as much for him as her. Rhodes probably knows all that, though. The guy is sharp. He swallows. “Is she really okay?”   


“Most days,” Rhodes says, watching the road. “I mean, you know how things have been like for her.” 

“Yeah.” It sits heavy, only made worse by choking down the rest of his questions. Is she breathing alright? Is she healing fine from using Extremis like she did? How’s the therapy thing going for her?

“She misses you,” Rhodes says. “Asks about you sometimes, although she’s about as good as it as you are.”   


“She asks about me?”

Rhodes rolls his eyes. “Good Lord,” he mumbles. “I can’t with you two. Yes, she asks, Barnes. ‘Cause I see you and she doesn’t. Nothing crazy. Just wants to make sure you’re okay.”   


“Is she coming back?” Maybe it is still a test he can pass after all, maybe she’s just waiting for the right report—

He shakes himself internally. Not a test. That’s the type of thinking that holds him back.

“Not to my knowledge,” Rhodes says. “She’s doing a lot of work out west.”

“Like what?”   


“You know Toni. Everything she can get her hands on. She’s talking about doing something for her eye.”

“That’s…that’s good.”

“Yeah, it will be. If anyone could, you know?”

Bucky nods. He knows.

Rhodes is silent for a minute, before he sighs. “I…today wasn’t a great day, for her.”

Bucky’s jaw tenses, followed by his legs, like he’s going to jump out of the car and  _ run  _ to her. “What can I do?”   


“Nothing. But, I’m telling you ‘cause I want you to know. She liked hearing you’re doing well.” Rhodes gives him a smile. “Just so you know.”   


And Bucky, kind of stunned, just sits there for the entire ride home, wearing what he’s sure is a dopey smirk.

When the bank robbers are able to break into a steel vault with their bare hands, the Avengers get called in to handle the situation. When the robbery happens in Manhattan, Bucky gets called first.

He’s closest, even if he’s relying on running through the city like an idiot. Not that a car would do much better, really. Not in midtown.

He’s not that far off, though, and so he’s there in time to walk around the police barricade and get a good scope on the situation outside.

Five criminals, almost twenty hostages. No word if they’re all enhanced, but one of them clearly has some super strength going for him. They haven’t rushed the police barricades yet, so they’re probably vulnerable to normal human bullets. 

Well, lucky for him, Bucky happens to have plenty of those. 

It’s a last resort, though. Bucky’s not supposed to just gun people down anymore.

“So, we going in there, Mr. Robot?”

Bucky doesn’t jump. He heard the damn kid coming, although it’s a close thing. He’s getting better at sneaking. “I thought Toni told you not to call me a robot.”

“She said not to  _ insult _ you by saying it.”

Bucky looks at the kid, who has his mask covering everything but his mouth. “And you’re not insulting me anymore?”

“Let’s wait until after this is done.”

Bucky can’t help but smile. “You supposed to even be here?”   


The kid actually tosses a cellphone at him, showing off Rhodes’ text calling him in. “You shouldn’t have this on you in the field,” Bucky grumps. “Toni was right: you  _ suck _ at secret identity.”

It doesn’t even hurt to talk about her, not really. Maybe it’s the job, maybe it’s the kid, maybe it’s just time. But he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He can’t see most of the kid’s face, but he can see enough to see a blush spreading. “Alright, Spider Man,” he says. “What’s your angle?”   


“I am very strong,” the kid says. “And sticky.”

Bucky snorts. “Great.” He’s seen the kid fight at the Compound and on video before, and has some general idea of what he can do. “No idea what these guys can do, but your webs are pretty solid, yeah?”   


“Yeah.”

“Good. I separate them from the hostages, and you web ‘em up, yeah?”   


So Bucky climbs down from his perch—after refusing Peter’s offer to  _ swing _ him down—and marches in the front door.

Bucky has two modes: a sniper hidden in the shadows, and big, bold, and obvious. There is no in-between for him.

Which works out fine for him. Between the Kevlar of his vest and vibranium of his arm, plus his advanced reflexes and fast healing, their firing guns don’t mean a ton to Bucky. One of them gets wise after a moment, and grabs a hostage, one of the bank tellers. “Keep moving and I’ll shoot her,” he growls.

Bucky’s eyes flick up to the ceiling, where Peter nods and webs the gun straight out of the man’s hand.

The shock allows Bucky to punch the one nearest him right in the face, knocking him unconscious and probably giving him a concussion. He doesn’t stop moving, and he sees Peter out of the corner of his eye webbing up criminals and guns. 

“Outside, go!” Bucky calls to a few hostages clear of the fight. They run out, at least limiting the crowd Bucky has to work around.

“ _ Fuck! _ ” Shouts a voice that should definitely absolutely not be using language like that.

Bucky spins to find Peter, who isn’t where he should be. It takes a moment for his senses to catch up, to figure out that the kid is on the floor. “What the hell happened?” He calls, already knocking his third bank robber out.

“The  _ fucking _ beam snapped when he tried to shoot me,” Peter hisses, but he’s shaken it off enough to get the last hostile with a web.

The situation diffused, Bucky starts sending hostages outside to the waiting police and EMTS. None of them seem to be injured, but can’t be too careful, he figures.

Which gets him moving over to the kid. “Some mouth you have there,” he says mildly. “You okay?”

Peter turns and looks at him, gives him a bit of a smile. His eyes seem okay, tracking and everything. The kid is enhanced, but he’s still so damn young. And Toni, wherever she is, wouldn’t forgive him if he let the kid get hurt.

“I’m great, Mr. Robot,” he says. “Can I come see your cat?”   
  


Bucky does let him come see the cat, and then brings the kid home, paying for a cab all the way back to Queens.

“Thank you,” May Parker says, ushering him inside after her nephew. “I saw the news, thanks for being with him today.”

Bucky shrugs. “Of course. I’m here, too. I’ll have his back.”

Peter snorts. “Maybe I’ll have yours, Robot-man.”

“Peter,” May says reproachfully.

“Nah, it’s fine. He’d never insult robots, right?”

Peter smiles, wide and honest. “Yeah, you got it.”

“Will you stay for dinner?” May asks.

Bucky’s in the middle of trying to figure out if the offer is genuine or not, and if it’s more polite to accept or decline, when Peter interrupts. “I can’t tonight, May, remember? It’s Wednesday.”

“Right, right. Yeah, you need to go get cleaned up, then.”

“I don’t think Toni really cares what I look like.”

“Peter Benjamin Parker, at least brush your hair.”

Peter scampers off to do just that, and it’s only after he’s gone that Bucky manages to get out, “Toni?”

“Yeah, every Wednesday they talk for about two hours. I was worried, when she left. Her working with Peter meant the world to him. But they’re keeping it up okay. Talking about his projects, his homework—she’s steering him through college applications more than me, honestly.”

“That’s…that’s great,” Bucky manages. “Hey, uh, dinner. Maybe some other time, okay?”   
  


Toni. Just when he thought things were going okay, just when he thought he was on even keel, suddenly Toni pops up everywhere.

“And how do you feel about it?”   


Bucky considers his therapist’s question. “I…I don’t know?”

“Initial thoughts, then.”   


“I wish she were here?”   


It comes out as a question, although it’s certainly not. He always wishes she was there, wherever he is, whenever. But… “I’m okay,” he says, with some amount of confidence. “I’m doing okay.”   


Well, it’s progress anyways.

“Winter Soldier, we’re gonna need you down in Alphabet City.”

Bucky’s leaving an appointment in the West Village, so he supposes he’s not as out of the way as he  _ could  _ be, but he’s not exactly in the neighborhood.

Still, a job is a job, and he told them he’d respond. “On my way.”

He takes off at a run, and he can run four or five times faster than a normal human, so his time isn’t terrible. Still, he’s marginally winded and the fight is well underway when he arrives.

It’s so bad that some of the Avengers from upstate arrive around the same time as him. Bucky’s already taking down robots, but he spares a thought to wish he had a plane.

“Enjoy your run?” Wilson quips, flying in from overhead and knocking a few robots out of the sky as he passes.

“Invigorating. Where the hell did these come from?”

“Beats me,” Steve says, throwing the shield through a half dozen robots. Bucky catches it on the other side and throws it back, taking out a few robots on the way. “Any labs around?”   


“Don’t look at me,” Peter calls, swinging in.

“No one was, kid.” Bucky has to smile, though, even if he keeps a close eye on the kid as a robot passes a little too close to him.

“We’re working on how the hell this happened, and how to stop this,” Rhodes interrupts them. “In the meantime, our goal is containment.”   


So containment is what they do. Bucky takes to shooting them, sometimes playing catch with Steve’s shield when he gets close enough. It helps, and it certainly keeps them contained to the area, but it doesn’t stop the onslaught.

“How are there this fucking many?” Clint demands from his perch.

“Replicating nano-technology.” Toni’s voice almost makes Bucky miss his shot. “It’s stolen tech, and badly executed at that.”

“What do you know, Tones?” Rhodes asks, and his voice, for all the fight going on around him, is calm. Like the world hasn’t suddenly just gotten brighter, a little livelier. Like things aren’t slotting back into place.

“Good news? It’s not stable. They’ll eventually self-destruct. Won’t be able to support their function. Of course, we’ll all be exhausted by then. So…looking for a better solution.”

As she finishes her sentence, a red and gold blur lands in the middle of the onslaught. She straightens up and starts firing at any robot that might be around her. “FRIDAY and I are running the calculations now. Give us a minute.”

“You’re not—” Bucky can’t help himself. He shouldn’t interact, definitely shouldn’t get in her business, but he has to check.

“No, Bucky. Not Extremis. Just good old-fashioned brain and computing power.” She takes off. “Cover me, okay?”   


She probably means for him to take shots from a distance, but that’s certainly not what he does. No, he gets up and switches from rifle—abandoning it at his perch—to handgun, physically following her as she retreats to a nearby building.

She seems to realize he’s there and her sigh is actually picked up over the comms. “Well, c’mon in,” she says.

He hesitates. “I can…”

“Bucky. C’mon in.”

Toni keeps moving inside, and Bucky follows her until she reaches a computer panel. “See, they figured it out,” she murmurs. “Wouldn’t work without a central computer. With this,” she taps the arc, “it’s my brain. But with the robots…” Her gauntlet retracts off her flesh hand, trailing over the computer device. “Give me just a moment, everyone.”

Her fingers, metal and flesh alike, trail over the computer keys, and Bucky watches like a starving man, little pieces of his soul falling back into place. 

“Almost…there,” she says. Her helmet is still on, but Bucky gets the image of her tongue poking out, her eye sparking bright, the look he’s seen so many times before.

Everything stops for a minute. Bucky actually breathes a sigh of relief, before he hears Steve frantic on the comms. “They’re all headed towards you! All of them headed towards you!”

Bucky swallows, feeling like a fool for his relief. Right. This is an Avenger’s mission. He really should have known better.

Toni swallows, then allows the gauntlet to cover her flesh hand once more. “They’re not stable,” she murmurs. 

“Meaning?”   


“Meaning they’re collapsing.”

“Are they dangerous?”   


Just then Toni shoots one coming in through the door. “Very. For about two more minutes.”   


It’s an onslaught then, and Bucky has his guns up without a second thought, covering the ones coming in in Toni’s blind spot. She levitates a foot or so off the ground, moves so she’s back to back with him, and starts firing.

Their movements become more and more erratic, and the piles of fallen robots pile up in the doorways. Still, their lasers still seem accurate and definitely deadly.

“Almost…” Toni mumbles. “Any minute now…”   


It feels much longer than two minutes, although Bucky has a good internal clock and knows Toni’s estimate to be accurate when the last one finally collapses.

Toni lands, and her helmet retreats. Bucky turns to check on her, to  _ look _ at her, and he can’t quite get enough, can’t find his words. Her curls are a tangled mess, some of them in her face, and her makeup is smudged.

She has a new eye, he notices absently. It’s a beautiful brown, almost matching the existing one, except for the rather obvious circuitry kept inside.

“—So, HYDRA stole your tech?” He hears Rhodes say. “‘Cause, Tones, we need to get on top of that, and—”

“Rhodey?”

“Yeah?”

“I just…I need  _ five minutes _ , before we talk about HYDRA, mkay?”

Rhodes heaves a sigh so deep Bucky can hear it over the comms. “Sure, Toni. We’ll be waiting.”

Bucky can’t decide if that’s a threat or not, but the thought of trying to figure it out is driven from his mind when Toni turns to smile at him. “Hi, Honey.”

His throat feels dry. “Toni.”

“You look good.”

“I…I feel good. I guess. How are…how are you?”   


“Been getting better. Even better now.”

She takes a step closer, which only makes him bolder, even if he feels rooted to the spot. “Yeah?”   


She takes another step. “I missed you.”

“Me too.”   


“Thanks for having my back today.”

“It’s my—”

She steps back. “If you say job, I swear to God, Bucky, I’ll—”

“Pleasure. It’s my pleasure,” he finishes.

She freezes, halfway through another step, hesitance written clear across her face. “Yeah?”

Yes. A pleasure, because how could being with Toni, just being near her, ever be anything else that a joy, a treat, a pleasure? Something to brighten his world.   


He grows bold, takes a step closer. Still staring at him like his eyes hold secrets she needs to decode, and she steps closer too, until he can pull her in—armor and all—and kisses her.

It’s soft, for how long it’s been, his hands pressing gently on her back, like he can make the distance between them disappear.

Her arms end up around his neck, her fingers in his hair, preventing him from moving when they break apart, not that he would ever want to go anywhere.

She bites her bottom lip, making him want to kiss it again. He doesn’t force himself to resist, and she reciprocates easily.

They need to talk. They need to talk about HYDRA and they need to talk about  _ them _ . If therapy has taught him anything, it’s that that talk is important. 

She bites his bottom lip as she pulls away again, and he rests their foreheads together.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, barely an inch away from her lips. “My pleasure.” 


End file.
